Overview:

Sweet Indrajao is a small, deciduous tree with a light gray, scaly smooth bark. Native to India and Burma, Wrightia is named after a Scottish physician and botanist William Wright (1740 – 1827). From a distance, the white flowers may appear like snow flakes on a tree. The fruits pendulous, long paired follicles joined at their tips. The hairy seeds are released as the fruit dehisces. The leaves of this tree yield a blue dye called Pala Indigo. Sweet Indrajao is called dhudi (Hindi) because of its preservative nature. Supposedly a few drops of its sap in milk prevent curdling and enhance its shelf life, without the need to refrigerate. The wood of Sweet Indrajao is extensively used for all classes of turnery. It is made into cups, plates, combs, pen holders, pencils and bedstead legs. It is commonly used for making Chennapatna toys

Benefits:

The leaves are acrid, thermogenic, anodyne and hypotensive and are very useful in odontalgia, vitiated conditions of vata and hypertension.
The seeds are bitter, astringent, acrid, carminative, constipating, depurative, anthelmintic and febrifuge.
They are useful in vitiated conditions of Pitta and Kapha, dyspepsia etc.
Its pungent fresh leaves quickly relieve toothaches. Leaves, flowers and fruits are source of a kind of indigo called pala-indigo. White, close-grained wood looks like ivory and is much used for carving and wood-turning. In piles, fever, diarrhoea, roundworm and colic.

Side Effects:

Large doses can cause vomiting, diarrhea, other intestinal problems, and spasms. There isn’t enough reliable information to know if wild indigo is safe when used in lower doses.