Atalantia ceylanica
Rutaceae
- English: Ceylon Atalantia
- Portuguese: atalantia-do-ceylão
- Tamil: Pey kurundu; பே ய் குருந்து;
Yaki Naran (යකිනාරන්); Wal dehi (වල් දෙහි); Yati naran (යටි නාරන්); Yak dehi (යක් දෙහි);
Plant Information – Growth, Importance
Yaki Naran or Atlantica ceylanica owned to Rutaceae family, This Evergreen plant grows up to 2.5m – 3 m in height. Yaki Naran grows as branched shrub, leaves are ovate, elliptic, or lanceolate in shape, leave 4-10cm long, and around 3-5cm wide. Matured leaves upside is a dark green color, and the gland-dotted downside is a light green color.
Fruits are comparatively small in size (1.5 cm across) than some other plants in the Rutaceae family & It has very few pulp-vesicles. Fruit contains 1-2 seeds and color-changing to dark purplish color with ripening.
White color flowers are fragrant and they clustered in leaf axils. Yaki Naran is distributed in Sri Lanka and South India. According to (Jayasinghe, Rajapaksha, & De Alwis, 2014) Atlantica ceylanica is recognized as a caterpillar host plant for Sri Lankan butterflies “Papilio demoleus demoleus, P. polytes romulus, P. polymnestor parinda and Two other verities”
Atalantia ceylanica or Yaki Naran plant taken as an herbal remedy for various ailments. Yaki Naran tree becomes popular among the community during time Corona Pandemic, due to its medicinal value to use as an herbal remedy.
In ethnomedicinal practices and Ayurveda, Yaki Naran leaves taken for inhaled steam to relieve Cough, Fever & Stiffness. Apart from that, leaves juice is used in making medicines for bronchitis, nervous system diseases, chest pains, and catarrh respiratory complaints.
Especially it is taken as a decoction for liver diseases in the traditional medical system. Atalantia ceylanica has capability to stimulate liver function. The Study (Fernando & Soysa, 2014) finally concluded that Atalantia ceylanica leaves decoction possess effective hepatoprotective activity against ethanol-induced toxicity in porcine liver slices.
However based on the Studies (Bandara et al., 1990) didn’t recognize any significant effect as antimicrobial and insecticidal comparing to other species in the Rutaceae family.
REFERENCES
- Bandara, B., Hewage, C., Jayamanne, D., Karunaratne, V., Adikaram, N., Bandara, K., . . . Wijesundara, D. (1990). Biological activity of some steam distillates from leaves of ten species of rutaceous plants. Journal of the National Science Council of Sri Lanka, 18(1), 71-77.
- Fernando, C. D., & Soysa, P. (2014). Total phenolic, flavonoid contents, in-vitro antioxidant activities and hepatoprotective effect of aqueous leaf extract of Atalantia ceylanica. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 14(1), 395.
- Jayasinghe, H., Rajapaksha, S., & De Alwis, C. (2014). A compilation and analysis of food plants utilization of Sri Lankan butterfly larvae (Papilionoidea). TAPROBANICA: The Journal of Asian Biodiversity, 6(2).
