Digital Garden

Alstonia scholaris

Semal

          Alstonia scholarism

Scientific Name- Alstonia scholaris

Common name- Saptaparni, Devil's Tree, Scholar

Family- Apocyanaceae

Habit type- Tree

The specific name scholaris came from the fact that in the olden days the wood was used for making school slates. Moreover, the tree is avoided by the animals because of its poisonous nature and hence is called Devil's Tree. It is called saptaparni because seven lance-shaped digitate leaflets arise from the end of the stalk of a palm shaped leaf.

Stem : Bark grey rough and yellowish from inside, branches whorled, young branches lenticellate, when he bark is injured a milky juice comes out.

Leaves : 4 - 7 in whorls, coriaceous, oblong - lanceolate, obtuse or bluntly acuminate, dark green above, pale and covered with whitish bloom beneath, base tapering, main nerves numerous, nearly horizontal, parallel, uniting in an intramarginal nerve.

Flowers :  Small, fragrant, greenish white, in umbellate, branched many - flowered, pubescent capitate cyme, peduncles 2.5 - 5 cm long, pedicels very short, bracts oblong, pubescent.

Fruit : Follicles 30 - 60 cm long and 0.3 cm in diameter, cylindric, pendulous in clusters, become completely averted after dehiscence.

Medicinal importance and Significance :

• The tree is often planted as an avenue plant and as ornamental in gardens.

• The bark is used for treating asthma and heart ailments, fever and diarrhoea.

• The bark is used to make writing pens - 'dita'.

• The fruits are bitter in taste and are used as medicine against intestinal worms.