Bio Diversity Park

Common Name : Frangipani

Hindi Name : चम्पा | Scientific Name : Plumeria rubra
Family : Apocynaceae
Uses : It is used as animal food, a poison and a medicine, has environmental uses and social uses and for food. The plant is often used as a herbal remedy. Frangipani contains a number of medically active constituents and has been shown to be uterine stimulant, antifungal, antibacterial, antitumor, antiviral, analgesic, antispasmodic, and hypoglycaemic. The plant contains fulvoplumierin, which has antibiotic activity and inhibits the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. All parts of the plant yield milky latex. The tree is supposed to produce a rubber. One of the most common and best known ornamental trees cultivated in the tropics. It is often planted near Asian temples, where the fragrant flowers are picked daily as religious offerings.
Native: Mexico to Venezuela
General Description:

It is a tree and grows primarily in the seasonally dry tropical biome. It is a deciduous, semi-succulent shrub or small tree with a broad crown that is often as wide as the tree is tall; it can grow up to 12 metres tall in the wild but is usually smaller in cultivation. The boles of wild trees can be 25cm in diameter. Frangipani is well- known for its intensely fragrant, lovely, spiral shaped, reddish brooms which appear at branch tips June to November. The plant is erect, branches are very thick. Leaves are scattered, lanceolate to obovate, nerves numerous, horizontal and 12.5 to 20 cm long. Flowers are very fragrant, generally red, pink or purple centered with rich yellow. They are large in terminal, 2-3 chotomous cymes, bracts many, broad, deciduous. Calyx small, 5-fid, eglandular within; lobes broad, obtuse. Corolla salver shaped, throat necked, Stamens near the base of the tube, anthers obtuse, cell rounded at the base. Disk 0 or lining the calyx tube. Carpels 2, distinct; Style short; Stigma, 2 lobed; Ovules many seriate in each cell. Follicles are linear oblong or ellipsoid. Seeds are oblong or lanceolate, plano convex, winged, albumen fleshy, thin; cotyledons oblong or ovate cordate.