Chrysophyllum cainito L.
- Family: Sapotaceae
- Vernacular names: Star Apple, സ്റ്റാര് ആപ്പിള് (Malayalam), Star Apple (English),
- Distribution: Native of Central America and Carribean, widely cultivated throughout the tropics
- Description: Trees up to 25 m high, bark greyish to dark brownish-black, vertically shallowly cracked. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous, ovate to elliptic-oblong, apex acuminate, base cuneate, margin entire, glabrous and shining above, golden-ferruginous silky beneath, coriaceousy. Flowers in axillary fascicles of 5-30. Calyx coppery silky, 5-lobed, lobes ovate, apex obtuse to rounded, hairy within. Corolla white, 5-lobed, lobes ovate, margins glabrous. Stamens 5; filaments deltoid, anthers ovoid. Ovary ferruginous-villous, 7-10-locular. Fruit globose, 4-6 cm across; seeds 3-10, obovoid, laterally compressed.
- Habit: Tree
- Habitat: Grown as edible tree
- Flowering & Fruiting: June-February
- Parts used: Leaves, Bark
- Properties & Uses: The undersides of the leaves are grated and applied as a poultice to wounds. A decoction of the leaves is taken orally to treat hypoglycaemia. A decoction of the tannin-rich, astringent bark is drunk as a tonic and stimulant, and is taken to halt diarrhoea, dysentery and haemorrhages, and as a treatment for gonorrhoea and catarrh of the bladder. The bitter, pulverized seed is taken as a tonic, diuretic, and febrifuge.
- Systems of Medicines: Folk,
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