Cleistanthus Collinus
Family : Euphorbiaceae
Common Name : Garari
English Name : Garari
Hindi Name : Garari
Telugu Name : Korsi
Bengali Name : Karlajuri
Tree Characteristics :
Garari is a small deciduous tree. Bark is dark brown, almost black, often with a reddish tinge, rough, peeling in rectangular woody scales. Leaves are alternate, quite entire, leathery, circular, broadly-obovate or elliptic, 1.5-3 inches long. Leaf stalk is 6 mm long. Flowers are yellowish-green, in small silky hairy clusters in leaf axils. Sepals are ovate-lance-shaped. Petals are as many as the sepals, minute narrow. Stamens are 5, filaments united in a column in the centre of the disk, and bearing a pyramidal or 3-lobed pistillode. Ovary is hairless, styles 3, bifid. Capsule is woody, stalkless, spherical, obscurely 3-rarely 4-lobed, 1.5-2 cm in diameter, dark-brown, shining. The bark is used to poison fish, and the outer crust of the capsule and the leaves and roots are also said to be exceedingly poisnous. Flowering: October-December.
Nursery:
Fruiting season October to November, March to Apri. 24-h soaking of seeds in boiled water and 10 min soaking in concentrated sulfuric acid. Germination is 31.8% for lighter seeds and 83.8% in the mid-weight seeds; Germination starts on day 10 and is complete by day 19. Economic Uses :
Ø Fruits act as violent gastrointestinal irritant (Bose et al., 1998). Leaves of C. collinus contains diphyllin glycoside called cleistanthin A having anticancer potential
Ø C. collinus leaf extracts have antifeedant activity against Spodoptera litura
Used for the purposes of suicide and homicide, as well as for medicinal use, also used to procure abortion.
