Henna

Indigenous to Baluchistan and widely cultivated throughout the country for its fragrant flowers and orange-red dye obtained from macerated, triturated or powdered leaves. The dye is used for dyeing cloth and hair, for staining nails, palms and soles, and in medicine. Very variable.

Fragrant shrub, up to 2.5 m tall. Leaves elliptic, ovate or obovate, acute, obtuse or subacuminate, 8-44 mm long, 2-20 mm broad. Panicles 3-22 cm long. Pedicels 2-3.5 mm long. Sepals ovate. Petals 3-4 mm long, 4-5 mm broad. Filaments 4 mm long. Capsules (3-)4-8(-9) mm in diameter, wall veined.

C. Asia, India, often cultivated.

Distribution: Africa and Asia.

Fl. Per.: Oct.-Nov.