Caper
Other Local Name : Indian Caper, Ceylon Caper
Botanical Name : Capparis zeylanicaà„€
Family : Capparaceae
Main Use : Diarrhoea
Other Uses : Root bark is sedative, cooling, cholagogue, stomachic and antihidrotic; along with spirit given in cholera. Leaves are used as a counter irritant and as a cataplasm in boils, swellings, piles and rheumatism. Flowers are used as laxative.
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A rigid, climbing, much-branched shrub; young parts clothed with profuse tomentum. Leaves 2.5-7.5 cm long, elliptic, oblong, obtuse, acute or retuse; stipular spines hooked. Flowers supra-axillary, solitary or 2-3, one above the other in a vertical line, the upper the longest. Sepals 9 mm long, densely rufous-pubescent outside; petals twice as long as the sepals, densely villous. Fruit subglobose, 3.2 cm across.
Caper is a climbing shrub. It is crowned with light rosy-red flowers on thorny climbing shrub. The flowers are quite soft and tender. The flowers are intensely fragrant. Earlier it was common in Bangladesh. Now it is rarely available because of environmental degradation.
Caper is an important medicinal plant.The bangla name of this herb is'Ashari lata' but the link of this plant with the month of Ashar ( June- July) is not so clear.This plant starts flowering at about the end of the winter season.Bees and butter flies remain buzzing around the flowers day in and day out. The plant remins blooming in spring and summer. Caper is a local plan.It thrives in the bushes near the villages. There is report that caper is still available in Modhupur,Bangladesh. In addition to Bangladesh it is also available in India ,
Nepal, Myanmar and China.
Caper is a branching plant, 2 to 8 meter long. There are bending tendrils on stem which help climbing on support. The stem is grey in colour.The leaves are 2.5-7.5 centimeter long. The flowers are light rosy to light violet. Fowers change colour with time and gradually become white.The fruits are edible. Tender fruits are used as vegetable.
Caper propagates through seeds .The natural habitat of caper is gradually reducing due to intensive use of such land for other purposes .