Common name: Phalsa फालसा (Hindi, Urdu, Marathi), Phulsha (Kannada), Phutiki (Telugu), Pharaho (Sindhi), Phalsi (Konkani), Shukri (Gujarati), Mriduphal म्रदुफल (Sanskrit), Pharosakoli (oriya), Chadicha (Malayalam), Unnu (Tamil)
Botanical name: Grewia asiatica Family: Tiliaceae (phalsa family)
Phalsa is a shrub or small tree which can grow upto 12 feet high. Its bark
is greyish-white or greyish-brown. Leaves with serrated margins vary from
broadly heart-shaped to obliquely ovate. The flowers are yellow about 2
centimeters in
length, and borne in densely crowded (rarely solitary) axillary cymes. The
fruit is edible, rounded, small dark blue to almost black when ripe,
sweetish and somewhat acid, with a fairly good flavor and each drupe contains
a rather large seed. The fruit is eaten raw with relish and sold in Delhi
lanes in summers, with great enthusiasm by singing hawkers.
Medicinal uses: The fruit is supposed to possess astringent,
cooling and stomachic properties. A spirit is distilled and a pleasant sherbet
is made from it. The leaves are used as an application to pustular eruptions.
The Santals prescribe the root-bark for rheumatism. In Sind an
infusion of the bark is used as a demulcent.
| Photographed in Maharashtra. |
Identification credit: Dinesh Valke
|
ative
