Phalsa

It is extensively cultivated for its sweet and sour acidic fruits which are sold in the market during summer months under the name Falsa. The pleasant sherbat or squash is prepared from the fruit pulp by mixing it with sugar and used as an astringent, stomachic and cooling agent. The leaves are applied on pustular eruptions. The stem bark is said to be used in refining sugar, for making ropes and its infusion is used as a demulcent.

A large shrub or medium sized tree, up to 8 m tall. Stem with greyish-white to brown bark, young shoots stellate tomentose. Leaves with 1-1.5 cm long, stellate hairy, clavate petiole; lamina greyish-tomentose beneath, scabrous above, broadly ovate to almost orbicular, 5-15 cm long and broad, 5 (-6)-costate, obliquely shallow cordate at the base, serrate, acute to obtuse; stipules narrowly oblique-lanceolate or falcate, 1-1.3 cm long, stellate hairy on both sides. Cymes mostly 3-flowered (dischasial), 2-6(-10) together in axillary clusters, peduncles 2-3.5(-5) cm long, densely hairy. Flowers orange-yellow, c. 2 cm across; pedicels 1-1.3 (-1.5) cm long, densely hairy; bracts linear-lanceolate, 3-4 mm long. Sepals oblong, c. 1.2 cm long, 2.5-3(-5) mm broad, hairy outside, glabrous within, acute. Petals oblong, claw c. 2 mm long, with a ring of hairs around whitish gland, limb 4-5 mm long, c. 3 mm broad, irregularly lobed at the apex, orange-yellow. Stamens numerous, filaments 4-6 mm long, orange-yellow, turning purplish, anthers oblong. Ovary globose, strigose; style c. 5 mm long, stigma indistinctly 4-lobed. Drupe dark purple, more or less globose, c. 5-12 mm in diameter, mostly entire or obscurely 2-lobed, hairy, mesocarp fibrous, acidic.

Distribution: A native of south India, now widely cultivated in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and other tropical countries.

Fl. Per.: March-September.