FoI
Kewda   
Foto info
Kewda
N Native Shrub
Photo: Gary Thingnam
Common name: Fragrant Screw Pine, Umbrella tree, Screw pine, Screw tree • Hindi: केवड़ा Keora • Telugu: Mugali • Bengali: Ketuki • Tamil: Thazhampoo தாழம்பூ • Malayalam: Mugali • Marathi: Kevada • Sanskrit: केतकी Ketaki
Botanical name: Pandanus odoratissimus     Family: Pandanaceae (screw pine family)

Fragrant Screw Pine is a shrub with fragrant flowers found wild in southern India, Burma and the Andamans. it is a small, slender, branching tree with a flexuous trunk supported by brace roots. With rosettes of long-pointed, stiffly leathery, spiny, bluish-green, fragrant leaves, it bears in summer very fragrant flowers. It is used as perfume. aromatic oil (kevda oil) and fragrant distillation (otto) called "keorra-ka-arak". Used plant part - male flowers. They are almost exclusively used in the form of a watery distillate called kewra water. Flowers have a sweet, perfumed odor that has a pleasant quality similar to rose flowers, but kewra is more fruity. The distillate (kewra water, pandanus flower water) is quite diluted; it can be used by the teaspoon, often even by the tablespoon. Most delightful, richest, and powerful of perfumes even when dried.
Photographed in Imphal, Manipur.