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.
Identification credit: Dinesh Valke
Photographed in Maharashtra.
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The flower labeled Phalsa is ...