Scarlet Wrightia - Wrightia coccinea

Common Name :	Scarlet Wrightia.
Botanical Name :	Wrightia coccinea
Family :	Apocynaceae
Bangla Name :	Palan ful (পালান ফুল), Palam ful (পালাম ফুল).
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

Today our plant is Palan that is only seen in Sylhet's hilly area. It is native to our Bangladesh and Eastern Asia. In our hilly area of Sylhet we still have few of this flowering plant. To my knowledge in Dhaka we have this plant in two places (one is Botanical garden and another one is Ramna Park).

The name of the flower is Palan, Palam, Palang, etc in Bangla. Botanical name is Wrightia coccinea. As the flower color is scarlet that's why the flower's common name is Scarlet wrightia. This flowering plant belongs to the family Apocynaceae.

Scarlet Wrightia (Wrightia coccinea) is a deciduous medium sized plant that can grow up to 20 meter in height. It is a slow growing plant. Leafs are elliptic broad at the middle and narrow tipped at the end. Leafs are arranged oppositely around the stem. Leafs produce white sap when torn.

Scarlet Wrightia (Wrightia coccinea) flowers are having a shape of funnel. It has five petals (to me looks like waxy when fresh). Upper side of the petal is scarlet in color where as the other side is pale pink or rosy in color. Flower buds are green, small, and oval shaped. Flower doesn't have strong fragrant but attract log of small insects with color. Blooming season in Bangladesh is spring and summer (February-May).

The timber from Scarlet Wrightia (Wrightia coccinea) is a high quality one when properly mature. Otherwise it is nothing but a low quality wood. For its slow growing nature it is hard to get such quality of timber from the tree.

Photos of Scarlet Wrightia (Wrightia coccinea) were taken from Ramna park, Dhaka during April 2015. That was planted by the famous professor and botanist Dizen Sharma.


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icflora.blogspot.com/