Description

Red Ixora is native to Asia and its name derives from the word 'Isvara' or Ishwara, a name variously meaning God, Supreme Being, Supreme Soul, lord, in India.  It has become one of the most popular flowering shrubs in South Florida gardens and landscapes.

Characteristics:

It is a branched shrub, up to 1 m tall; branches hairless. Leaves are mostly stalkless, opposite deccussate, 4-8 x 1.5-6.5 cm, entire, apiculate, blunt or with a short sharp point, 8-15 pairs at lateral nerves, hairless; stipules triangular, cuspidate or awned. Flowers are borne at branch-ends, in dense corymb-like cymes, flower-cluster-stalk very short or absent; bracts about 8 mm long. Flowers are stalkless, bright scarlet, hypanthium 1-1.5 mm long, becoming hairless, teeth, about 0.5 mm long. Flower-tube is prominently long, 2.5-4.0 cm long, 1.5 mm wide, hairless, petals 8-10 x 4-5 mm, twisted in bud, throat hairless. Stamens are 4, inserted on the throat of flower-tube, filaments very short. Style protruding; stigma 1.5 mm long. Fruit is spherical, red when ripe, crowned with the sepal-cup teeth. It is a very common garden plant.

Medicinal Uses:

Roots are stomachic, sedative, astringent, febrifuse and acrid. Leaf extract is given in dysentery. Bark powder is applied to sores, burns and injuries. Flower are sweet, carminative, digestive and constipating. Flower extract is used as an eye lotion. The flowers, leaves, roots, and the stem are used to treat various ailments in the Indian traditional system of medicine, the Ayurveda, and in various folk medicines, in traditional Indian medicine the fusion of juice leaves and the fruit of Ixora coccinea is used to care for dysentery, ulcers and gonorrhea.