78-PONGAMIA PINNATA (L.) Pierre.
Local names: Karanj
Family: Ashoka
Location: Botanical Garden.
Characters: Moderate sized trees,
branches dropping glabrous, leaves
pinnate, stipules small, oblong, leaflets opposite, flowers axillary racemes shorter than the leaves, pedicels, calyx truncate or obscurely toothed, brown pubescent outside corolla pinkish white, ;pods woody, oblong ellipsoid, compressed recrved, mucronate, seed solitary, reniform brown.
Common, along river banks, planted as a venue tree.
General use: Young twig used as tooth brush, root bark is used in fish killing. Wood is used as fuel, for yoke, carts, ploughs and furniture, seed oil used in tanning industry, soap making, as fuel in diesel engines and seed cake as manure, keeps off white ants, wood is used in building.
Medicinal use: Leaves are poultice used on rheumatic pains. Root paste used in bleeding piles. Leaf juice in flatulence, dyspepsia, diarrhoea and cough, hot leaf infusion in sexual disease. Flowers in diabetes. Pongamia oil applied in scabies, herpes, leucoderma and other cutaneous disease. Seeds used on burn chest pain and cold.
Veterinary use: Seeds used in skin diseases, sore and oil for mange, leaves used in wound, bronchiodilation, bronchial problem, inflammation and galactagogue.