Linn.Family: Annonaceae.
Habitat: A native to South America and the West Indies; now cultivated throughout India.
English: Custard Apple, Sugar Apple, Sweet-sop.Ayurvedic: Gandagaatra, Sitaa phala (also equated with Curcurbita maxima).Unani: Sharifaa.Siddha/Tamil: Sitaaphalam, Atta.Action: Leaves—insecticide (seed powder, mixed with leaf juice is used for removing lice from scalp). Seeds—abortifacient. Root— purgative, used in blood dysentery.
Fruit—invigorating, sedative to heart, antibilious, antiemetic, expectorant. Dried, powdered unripe fruits—used for treating ulcers. Ripe fruit made into paste with betel leaves is applied to tumour to hasten suppuration. Leaves, bark, unripe fruit—strongly astringent; used for diarrhoea and dysentery.A fraction of total alkaloid from roots exhibits antihypertensive, antispasmodic, antihistaminic and bron- chodilatory properties. Leaves contain a cardiotonic alkaloid, quinoline. Squamone and bullatacinone were selectively cytotoxic to human breast carcinoma.In Cuban medicine, leaves are taken to reduce uric acid levels.
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