Botanical name -Pandanus tectorius
Family - Pandanaceae
English name -Screw pine
Sanskrit names - Ketaka, Sucikapushpa, Jambuka, Krakacacchada,
Swarna Ketaki – Laghu pushpa, Sugandhini
Singhalese name- - Vetake / Vetakeyya
Verities – 1. Ketaka – male green flower
2. Svarna Ketaki – female yellow flower
Parts used - flowers & roots (aerial roots).
A prickly tall bush (2-3m) to a small tree (3-14m tall), widely branching sometimes with several trunks which can be spiny. Often with stilt roots around the stem. Also emerging from the stems, aerial roots with 'warts' and conspicuously large root caps
Leaves long, strap-like (70cm-2.5m) with pointed tip and sharp wicked spines along the sides and midrib on the underside, leaves arranged in a spiral. Shiny green upperside, dull on the underside. Dead leaves hang down like a skirt and eventually fall away.
According to Little, male and female plants have different structures. Trunks of male trees are hard and solid throughout. The timber is yellow, strong and difficult to split. Trunks of female trees have a hard outer part, but soft inner pith. In fact, the trunks of female trees have used as water pipes after removal of the pith.
The male flowers form a pendulous cone (25-60cm) comprising many small flowers. Around the male flowers are yellow-white leaflets that produce a pleasant smell. The female flowers emerge as compact greenish egg-shaped heads with pistils densely crowded with colored scales.
Each fruit (4-20cm wide, 8-30cm long), hard and fibrous, containing usually 5-11 seeds. The fruits form an egg-shaped compound fruit that looks like a pineapple. Green ripening orange. The fruits float and can remain viable for a long time as they disperse with the sea. Some accounts suggest animals also disperse the seeds of those varieties with sweet pulp.
Properties:
Rasa Madhura, Tikta, Katu,
Guna Laghu, Snigdha
Veerya Ushna
Vipaka Katu
Attributes / Karma:
Alleviates Kapha
Flowers of Svarna Ketaki promote eye sight.
Flowers alleviate Pitta & Kapha. Improves complexion, deodorant & hair tonic.
Cures – (Unmada) Mania (Raja Nighandu)
Medicinal uses
External
• Oil is applied topically on painful back.
• Epilepsy – Nasya of pollen grains is given.
• Pollen grain powder heals wounds & can be used as deodorant.
Internal
• To prevent abortions – paste of flowers ground in cow’s milk is given.
• Urinary disorders – roots are used.
Formulations
Ketaki taila, Nayanaketaki taila, Ketaki pushpa arka
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