You can smell the Champak blooms from several meters away. No wonder it is also called ‘Gandhaphali’ in Sanskrit. Humans have trapped this heady scent into a commercially popular perfume. These flowers are also a source of a yellow dye. The compound ‘Champacene’ has been extracted from the essential oil obtained from the Champak flowers.
Tailed Jay, Common Jay, Common Bluebottle, Lime Swallowtail, Five-bar Swallowtail and Island Mormon butterflies are some whose larvae feed on the leaves of the Champak tree. The heavenly-smelling flowers also beckon a number of other insect pollinators, especially beetles, and birds that help spread its pollen.
The Champak flowers have immense socio-cultural significance – they are offered to the deities during Puja and often sold on road-sides and traffic signals in India as beaded garlands to be worn in the hair. The tree also has medicinal properties, with history of use well-documented in the Ayurveda texts.