Filicium Decipiens

Scientific Name: Filicium Decipiens

Common Name: Japanese fern tree, Pihimbiya, Thika palm

Family: Fabaceae (commonly known as legume, pea or bean family)

Names in other languages: India: Katu, Ningal, Puveras

General Information

Native to Sri Lanka, the Western Ghats of southern India and small highland areas of East Africa, the Fern Tree or Thika Palm is best known for its striking foliage, though large specimens also produce a heavy wood. It is a slow-growing tree with a straight, short trunk and a dense, neatly shaped rounded crown. The bark is smooth and pale brown on young trees, on older trees becoming rough, fissured and flaking. In native forests, it reaches heights of up to 27 m (88 ft), though is more typically 5 to 20 m (16 to 65 ft) tall.

Features of Filicium Decipiens that make it identifiable:

Leaves are large, fern-like and showy, up to 40 cm (1.3 ft) long and made up of glossy green elongated oval leaflets arranged in pairs along the length. These are evergreen, remaining on the tree throughout the year.

The flowers are small, white with a pink tint and held in loose clusters that are hardly visible, being hidden by the dense foliage. They bloom from late winter to spring, coinciding with the transition from the dry to the rainy season and are followed by small green oval fruit that become purple-red when ripe.

Small green oval fruit that become purple-red when ripe.

Bark: The bark is smooth and pale brown on young trees, on older trees becoming rough, fissured and flaking. In native forests, it reaches heights of up to 27 m (88 ft), though is more typically 5 to 20 m (16 to 65 ft) tall.

Uses: Non medicinal and Medicinal

Trees on favourable sites produce a hard and heavy wood, averaging above 900 kgs per cubic meter (56 lbs per cubic ft), with moderate to high natural resistance to decay and termites. The heartwood is an attractive reddish-brown and well-formed logs are sawn for durable beams and posts used in heavy construction. The small-diameter roundwood and branchwood is crafted into tool handles and, when properly dried, makes an excellent slow-burning firewood.

Filicium decipiens is traditionally used as anti-diabetic agent in India and Sri Lanka 3 . It also showed a variety of biological activities, such as anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and mollusicicidal activities.