Ficus benghalensis L.
| Kannada Name : | Aalada mara |
| Common Name : | Banyan tree, Strangler fig |
| Family Name : | Moraceae |
| Scientific Name : | Ficus benghalensis |
| Species Type : | Indigenous |
| Phenology : | Evergreen |
| Conservation Status : | Not known |
| Flowering Period : | March - April |
| Fruiting Period : | March - May |
| Origin : | Indian subcontinent |
Uses
The leaves are used to remedy dysentery and diarrhoea. They are used in a decoction with toasted rice as a diaphoretic. The young leaves are heated and used as a poultice. The bark is tonic and diuretic. A decoction of the root fibres is useful as a treatment against gonorrhoea, whereas the tender ends of the aerial roots are used for obstinate vomiting.
Description
A large, evergreen to deciduous tree, up 25 m tall, pillar-like prop roots and accessory trunks. Trunk massive, fluted, bark grey, smooth, young softly white puberulous. Leaves with stout, hairy petiole; simple, ovate or obovate to elliptic, glabrous above, finely pubescent beneath, coriaceous, base subcordate or rounded, apex obtuse, margin entire, cystoliths abundant on side, few or absent below. Inflorescence a syconium. Hypanthodia sessile, in axillary pairs on young depressed-globose, green, hairy, minutely hairy basal bracts, Male flowers: numerous ostiolar; stamen solitary, with shortly mucronate anther. Female flowers: sessile, mixed with gall flowers, small. Gall flowers numerous, pedicellate. Figs globose to depressed-globose, pinkish-red, hairy.
