PALAS
English : Bastard teak/Bengal Kino/Butea flowers
Urdu : Dhak/Palas/Tesu
Telugu :Palasamu/Paladutu/Modugo
Description :
It is a medium-sized deciduous tree with a somewhat crooked trunk.The bark is bluish-grey or light-brown and yields a gum known as Chunia gond or Butea gum or Bengal kino.The gum occurs in small, irregular angular fragments.When fresh, it is briittle,vitreous,ruby red in colour and transparent in small fragments but no kepping,it becomes tougher,dull,opaque and nearly black.It is soluble in water and its taste is astrigent.
Butea flowers are large yellowish red and black in colour. Fruits are long with flat seeds, known as palas papada. The seeds are 25-38 mm long. 16-25 mm wide and 1.5-2 mm thick. The seed coat is dark reddish-brown in colour,thin and wrinled.Seeds odour is faint,taste slightly acrid and bitter.
Action and Uses:
Bark is cooling,demulcent and astrigent.It is chewed with sugar candy to subside abnormal thrist and a weak decoction of bark is used for cold, cough and catarrh.
Leaves are astrigent and tonic.Rectal enema with their infusion or decoction is good in dysentery and diarrhoea.Vaginal douche in leucorrhoea and mouth wash in septic and congested throat.
Gum is powerful astrigent and a good tonic.It is used in diarrhoea and dystentery and also in leucorrohoea,spermatorrhoea and permature ejaculation.It gives much strength to back and hence known as Kamarkas or Kamarghat i.e a drug which makes the back strong.
Flowers are astrigent,pugent,bitter and also resolvent,diuretic and emmenagogue.They are very useful in cystitis, dysurea, pain in bladder, retension of urine,amenorrhoea,painful piles and uterine pain etc.In all such cases,patients are to sit in the decoction of flowers alone or with Camomile flowers,Crescent pods and poppy capsules.In rheumatic pains and swellings and gouty arthritis,fomentation with the above decoction gives quick relief.
Seeds are anthelmatic,diuretic,astrigent and rubefacient.They are beneficially used for the cure of dhobis itch and ringworm.For this purpose seeds are pounded in lemon juice and applied to the lesions.They are commonly used orally in intestinal worms.