Bitterroot Restoration

Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Myrtales
Family: Combretaceae
Common name: Goache lata, Goichia lata(Beng.).
Life cycle: perennial
Native Range: Native to India and Burma (Myanmar), through Indo-China and Thailand.

Calycopteris floribunda commonly known as Ukshi. It is a large scandent shrub or liana, which can reach up to 10 m long. Ukshi is found extensively in the low-lying tropical evergreen forests of the Western Ghats.

Its young branchlets are dense with yellow short soft hair. The leaves are arranged opposite, egg-shaped to narrowly elliptical, entire and dense with yellow short soft hair, particularly below. Flowers are bisexual, yellowish-green and they are about 1 cm long. Fruit is an ellipsoid, 5-gonous and 5-furrowed pseudocarp. It is about 8 mm long.

Ukshi is revered as a life-saver by the forest dwellers who regularly depend on this vine during summer when streams dry up. Sections of the vine store water, which people often use to quench their thirst. Their leaves are bitter, astringent, laxative, anthelmintic, depurative, diaphoretic and febrifuge. They are useful in intestinal worms, colic, leprosy, malarial fever, dysentery, ulcers and vomiting. Their fruits are useful in jaundice, ulcers, pruritus and skin diseases.