Salacia prinoides seed

LATIN NAME: Salacia prinoides

COMMON NAME: Ceylon Salacia

The Ceylon salacia is a handsome, woody, climbing shrub or vine of the warm forests, and its fine, oval, glossy, dark-green leaves and its small, yellow or greenish flowers in the small clusters, followed by the small, round, red or orange, fleshy fruits, have made it a treasured and fine plant of the region. It grows as a woody, twining, climbing shrub or vine, reaching up to several metres or so, with the slender, twining, branching stems bearing the opposite, oval, pointed, glossy, dark-green leaves and, through the warm months, the small, yellow or greenish flowers in the small clusters, followed by the small, round, red or orange, fleshy, few-seeded fruits. It is a species of the flowering vine in the staff vine family, and it is native to the warm forests of the south and the south-eastern Asia, while it is prized for its long history of traditional use, and it is known as the Ceylon salacia.

In the staff vine family it is the glossy-leaved climber of the warm forests, a vine the traditional practice of the south has held in high regard for the ages.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The Ceylon salacia is a name the natural-product chemists of the south keep close, and the roots and the parts of the vine have been worked through with care for the constituents behind the long traditional use of the region. The botanists have mapped its place in the staff vine family and the warm forest flora, and the horticulturists of the warm regions have grown the glossy, evergreen climber for the trellis and the garden wall. The plant is best appreciated as a subject of study rather than a casual remedy, and the growers of the warm-region vines keep it in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the warm garden, the Ceylon salacia is the glossy vine of the shaded wall. Its small flowers feed the bees, its round, red or orange, fleshy fruits feed the birds, and the twining, evergreen growth gives cover and shelter along the trellis. The traditional use of the region keeps the plant in the local practice, and it asks for the warm, moist, well-drained ground of the sheltered spot. Glossy, evergreen and long-valued.

Soak the seeds in lukewarm water overnight, then sow them at a shallow depth in pots of rich, open, free-draining compost, keep the pots warm and evenly moist in a bright but shaded spot, and the first shoots will appear in their own good time.