Description

Butea monosperma, the flame of the forest or Palash tree, is a medium-sized deciduous tree of the family Fabaceae, native to the tropical dry deciduous forests, rocky hillsides, and plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Himalayan foothills to Sri Lanka and extending to Southeast Asia. Its spectacular display of brilliant orange-red, parrot beak-shaped flowers — which appear on bare branches between February and March — has given it the poetic Sanskrit designation Brahma Vriksha. The seeds, contained in flat pods, are documented in the Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita as a primary anthelminthic drug for intestinal parasite elimination. The state tree of Jharkhand, the Palash is also the traditional source of the orange Holi colour. The flowers are additionally referenced in Ayurvedic ophthalmic and blood-purifying preparations.