Annona squamosa, Aatha, Seethappazham, Sugar apple, ആത്ത, സീതപ്പഴം

Family: Annonaceae
Vernacular names: Aatha, Seethappazham, ആത്ത, സീതപ്പഴം (Malayalam), Sugar apple (English), Sitaphala (Sanskrit), Seetha (Tamil)
Distribution: Native of Central America and West Indies; now cultivated in tropics
Description: Trees. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous. Flowers greenish-white or yellow, bisexual, axillary, solitary or a few together, leaf-opposed. Fruit an aggregate of berry, ovoid, greenish, glabrous, tuberculate with rounded tips, glaucous, pulp white; seeds many, black, shiny.
Habit: Tree
Habitat: Cultivated and almost naturalized.
Flowering & Fruiting: June-October

Parts used: Root, leaves, fruit and seeds
Properties & Uses: Cooling, febrifugal and astringent. Ripe fruits used to treat hypertension, jaundice and diabetes, and also used for women's pain associated with menstruation. Root is used to treat dysentery. Fruits and leaves are anti-oxidant, fruit epicarp mixed with mustard oil made into a paste applied on hair to check excessive hair loss.
Systems of Medicines: Ayurveda, Folk, Unani,
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