Ethnobotany of Butea Monosperma (LAM.) Kuntze. in Jammu and Kashmir, India

Sanjeev Kumar Gupta

Abstract: Butea monosperma (Lam. ) Kuntze. also known as Flame of the Forest is an important tree which commonly grows in the Jammu region. It thrives well under dry and arid conditions. The tree is put to many uses like medicine, fibre, fuelwood, fodder and other miscellaneous purposes including socio-religious rituals. There is hardly any religious ritual wherein it is not used in one form or another. The use of its flowers to extract an orange dye for colouring the foodstuffs seems to hold a good potential for substituting the synthetic colouring agents. It requires habitat conservation especially in the localities where it grows abundantly.

Keywords: Flame of the Forest, rituals, conservation