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Wrightia tinctoria
Also called Jaundice Curative Tree, Vetpaalai
A small tree from the dogbane family, native to dry and moist parts of India, southeast Asia and Australia, grown mainly as an ornamental in the tropics and valued for indigo-like dye. It is a hardy, drought-tolerant tree that suits seasonally dry climates.
Wrightia tinctoria, Pala indigo plant or dyer's oleander, is a flowering plant species in the genus Wrightia found in India, southeast Asia and Australia. It is found in dry and moist regions in its distribution. Various parts of the plant have been used in traditional medicine, but there is no scientific evidence it is effective or safe for treating any disease.
It is mainly found in Australia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Timor and Vietnam. Within India, it is found in most of the peninsular and central India except the northern and north-eastern states.
The flowers, leaves, fruits and seeds are edible. The tree is harvested from the wild as a medicine and source of a dye and wood. Leaves are extracted as fodder for livestock. The leaves, flowers, fruits and roots are sources of indigo-yielding glucoside, which produces a blue dye or indigo- like dye. About 100–200 kilos of leaves are needed to prepare 1 kilo of dye. It is occasionally planted as an ornamental in the tropics. The branches are trampled into the puddle soil in rice field for green manuring. It is recommended as a good agroforestry species as it intercrops well. High levels of extraction is resulting in it becoming scarce in some regions. The sap added to milk has been reported to have preservative properties; the milk will remain fresh for some time, the taste remaining unaltered.
Wrightia antidysenterica · Wrightia arborea · Wrightia demartiniana · Wrightia dubia · Water Jasmine
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Wrightia tinctoria by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
