(Last Updated on : 08-01-2014)
Sudrabilo is an Indian medicinal plant and is named as Holigarna longifolia Wight & Arn botanically. This herb is commonly known as 'bibu' or 'holgeri'or 'sudrabilo' in Maharashtra and is known as 'kattucheram' or 'karunjarai' among the people of Tamil Nadu .
Sudrabilo is a tall deciduous tree, often with a buttressed bole. The branchlets are densely leafy at the apex. The leaves are alternate, obovate or oblanceolate, 15-30 centimetres long and 5-10 cnetimetres wide. The leaves are glabrous, apex acute or rounded, base decurrent into the petiole. The flowers are minute, polygamous or unisexual. They are crowded in rufous-tomentose axillary and terminal panicles. The calyx-teeth of Sudrabilo are very short and the petals are 2.5 mm long, oblong and acute. The plant bears fruits and the fruits are up to 2.5 centimetres long, obliquely ovoid, rounded at the top, glabrous, long-pedicelled and are almost entirely included in the torus.
Sudrabilo the Indian medicinal plant is generally found in the evergreen forests of the western coastal areas of peninsular India and in the Western Ghats from the Konkan southwards. The best-suited development of this plant occurs on deep, moist, fertile soils.
The juice from the fruits is used as a vesicant. The fruit and bark are used for their medicinal properties.