Michelia champaca Linn

Golden Champa (Michelia Champaca Linn/सोनचाफा) is an evergreen tree and mainly cultivated for its strongly fragrant yellow flowers.
The flowers of Golden Champa are best known and used in India for several purposes. They are primarily used for worship at temples, floated in bowls of water to scent the room. A yellow dye is extracted from the flowers and is used as a base for other colours. The flower is the main scent present in the commercial ‘Joy’ perfume, most expensive perfume in the world; hence sometimes is called as Joy Perfume tree.

Golden Champa is a very useful agroforestry tree too! It is known to fix the atmospheric nitrogen in soil with the help of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae. Its leaves provide very useful mulch. It improves the soil under tree cover by increasing pH, soil organic carbon and available phosphorus. Hence it is used to reforest badly eroded areas. Its leaves are used as larval fodder by silkworms & butterflies. It has potential for commercial exploitation for oil production for various uses.

The tree also possesses medicinal properties. Leafs extract and seeds extracts shows fungicidal & antibacterial activity respectively. A decoction of the bark and leaves is given after childbirth; the bark is used as a febrifuge. In Ayurveda, the tree is mentioned to pacify vitiated tridosha, detoxify poison, worm infestation, increase digestive power, diuretic and cures fever. Flowers reduce burning sensation, cures skin disease, even leprosy & ulcer.

The golden champa tree becomes so much exhausted with the extravagance of its output that it takes another two to three years to gather enough strength to be able to flower again. The wise gardeners remove many of the fruit clusters of the ‘Golden Champa’ tree before they develop to make sure that the tree flowers every year.

MEDICINAL USE:

•          Antitoxic agent,expels worms and promoted the flow of urine.
•          Gives tone to the stomach,checks the over production of bile, cures leprosy, skin diseases and ulcers.
•          Removes phlegm,good remedy for cough and rheumatism.
•          Abscesses.
•          Promotes menstrual flow and is a good laxative.
•          Stomach and intestinal cramps.
•          Indigestion,nausea and fever.
•          Vertigo or dizziness.
•          Headache,eye infections and gout.
•          Chapped feet.