CAESALPINIA BONDUC

Common name: Yellow Nicker, Gray nicker, nicker seed, bonduc nut, Fever nut, nicker bean • Hindi: कांटकरंज Kantkarej, कांटीकरंज Kantikaranja, कुबेराक्षी Kuberakshi • Marathi: सागरलता Sagarlata • Tamil: Kalichchikkai • Malayalam: Kalanchi • Telugu: Gachchakaya • Kannada: Gajikekayi • Sanskrit: लताकरंजः Latakaranjah, कुबेराक्षी Kuberakshi, कंटकीकरंजः Kantakikaranjah

Botanical name: Caesalpinia bonduc   

Family: Caesalpiniaceae (Gulmohar family)

Synonyms: Caesalpinia crista, Caesalpinia bonducella, Guilandina bonduc

Introduction Yellow Nicker is a large, thorny, straggling, shrub which behaves like a strong woody climber, taking support of trees. The branches are armed with hooks and straight hard yellow prickles. Leaves are large, double compound, with 7 pairs of pinnae, and each with 3-8 pairs of leaflets with 1-2 small recurved prickles between them on the underside. Flowers are yellow, in dense long-stalked racemes at the top. Fruits are inflated pods, covered with wiry prickles. Seeds are 1-2 per pod, oblong or globular, hard, grey with a smooth shiny surface. The hard and shiny seeds are green, turning grey. They are used for jewellery.
Medicinal uses:  Fruits are tonic and antipyretic. Seeds yield a fatty oil used as a cosmetic and for discharges from the ear. Leaves and bark are febrifuge.

Therapeutic uses: Seeds are purgative, emetic, tonic and aphrodisiac. Tuberous roots are emetic, alexiteric. While the leaves are demulcent and unguent.

Folk medicinal uses: The leaf juice is given for the cure of sore throat, dry cough and ardous urine; the leaf juice is also a good blood purifier. Decoction of the leaves is also used in abortion.

The seeds are eaten by women to prevent conception. One to three gms of the powdered seeds boiled with milk are a powerful tonic and have an aphrodisiacal action. A preserve of the decorticated powdered seeds is used as an anthelmintic.

Flowers : August-September