Queen sago plant

Scientific name of Queen sago plant: Cycas circinalis Linn

Name of Queen sago plant in different languages:-

English: Sago palm, fern palm, Pitogo

Sanskrit: Hintalah

Hindi: Jangli madan must ka phul

Tamil: Madana kama raja

Malayalam: Eenthu- ഈന്ത്

Plant description:

Queen Sago is an endemic tree of Western ghat area, it is a single trunk tree resembles with palm trees, the trunk grows up to 7 m height and trunk 12 to 27 cm in diameter, trunk covered with a corky bark.  The leaves are arranged pinnate, grow up to 8 ft long, bright green colour or, glossy and smooth, long and bears up to 110 flat leaflets, arranged opposite and in a rosette manner. The male plants bear a yellowish-brown cone, which are ovate to conical in shape measure up to 48 cm. long, the female carry ovules and seeds on large sporophylls. The seeds are small, up to 39 mm. long with a light green color, when ripe it turns yellow fleshy covering with a pleasant fragrant smell, which is poisonous to livestock.

We can calculate the age of a plant by counting its ring on the stem as one per year. In South Kerala especially in Malabar and Idukki district, the fruits are consumed after a  processing method, The tribals cast named 'Mannan' people of Idukki district  will collect  the young fruits and cut to small pieces and allowed to boiled in water and repeat this process two or three times, till its poison removed and consumed As food, it is said to be good for health.

Cut the ripe fruits into two pieces and allowed to dry in sunlight, then the inner part (White and thick seed) will come out from the shell. After removing the hard shell, again allowed to dry well to be preserved for a long period. Afterward it will keep in plenty of water for one day, and the next day the water will remove and pour fresh water, this process will continue till the foam end ( five to  seven days).

Useful plant parts:

Leaf, Fruits, seed

Medicinal uses:

To treat vatha, Pitha disorders, inflammation etc.

Chemical contents:

Bi-flavonoids, Tetra-hydro-isoginkgetin, neurotoxins.