Samadera indica Gaertner (SIMAROUBACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Nippa, Samadera.
Malayalam: Karinjotta.
Tamil: Nibam,Niepa, Karinjottei.
Description: Small evergreen trees up to 12 m tall. Leaves alternate, elliptic-oblong, up to 30 x 11 cm, rounded or subacute at base, acute-acuminate at apex, glossy; shining; petioles ca 2 cm long. Flowers in few- or many- flowered, 7-30 cm long axillary or terminal umbels, white, pale yellow or purplish, fragrant. Calyx small, lobes 4, puberulous outside. Petals 4, free, oblong-oblanceolate, ca 20 x 4 mm, dorsally pubescent. Stamens 8; filaments puberulous. The ovary consists of 4-5 distinct, free carpels. The fruits are composed of 1-5 drupes, nearly semicircular, measuring up to 6.5 x 4 cm. They are highly compressed, smooth, reticulate, and exhibit a red color. Each fruit contains a solitary seed.
Flowering & Fruiting : Almost throughout the year.
Distribution: India: Evergreen forests and along back waters and sandy places in Western Ghats and Deccan plateau. Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Andaman Islands. Sri Lanka, Myanmar.
Uses: Wood is light and used for turnery articles, packing-cases and is suitable for cheap and light furniture, match wood. It is the source of niepa bark of commerce. Bark and wood stomachic, emmenagogue, febrifuge, tonic, useful in dyspepsia, flatulence, colic, dysmenorrhoea, general debility and in vitiated conditions of vata, leaf useful in crysipelas and pruritus; seed oil astringent, depurative, emetic, purgative, febrifuge, useful in leprosy, scabies, constipation, bilious fever and vitiated conditions of vata and kapha.