Swamp jasmine (Tamilnadia uliginosa)

Swamp jasmine is Tamilnadia uliginosa, a small gardenia-family tree of tank bunds and seasonally wet ground. Its genus is named after Tamil Nadu. It carries large, fragrant white flowers and a hard, rounded fruit that some communities cook as a vegetable.

Botanical name: Tamilnadia uliginosa (Retz.) Tirveng. & Sastre
Family: Rubiaceae
Tamil: Perunkarai
Hindi: Pindalu
Parts used: Fruit (cooked, in some regions)
Habit: Swamp Gardenia-cousin; karai is Catunaregam
Last updated: 2026-10-25

How to recognise Swamp jasmine

Botanists moved it between Gardenia, Randia and Catunaregam before Tirvengadum and Sastre gave it a genus of its own, named after Tamil Nadu. Older floras still print Randia uliginosa.

It is a stiff, small tree with leaves clustered at the tips of short, thick shoots. The flowers are white, waxy and fragrant, opening from a long tube, and they fade to cream within a day or two.

The fruit is a smooth, hard, roughly egg-sized berry, green when young and yellowish when ripe. Its spiny cousin karai, Catunaregam spinosa, grows on drier ground and has smaller fruit.

Traditional use of Swamp jasmine

Kitchen

In parts of central and eastern India the young fruit, often called pindalu, is cooked as a vegetable, much as other hard fruits are. It is roasted or boiled, not eaten raw.

Regional Indian food practice

Village use

The hard fruit and bark have been used to stun fish in ponds in some regions, a practice now restricted because it harms aquatic life.

Regional fishing practice

Modern notes on Swamp jasmine

Laboratory work on the fruit focuses on saponins, the same soap-like compounds that make it bitter raw and explain the fish-stunning use. Cooking is what makes the vegetable use workable.

Swamp jasmine safety

Eat the fruit only as local cooks prepare it, cooked, and only where it is an established food. Do not eat it raw.

Ecology and sourcing

It favours tank margins, paddy bunds and seasonally flooded scrub — habitats that shrink as tanks silt up or are built over.

Where tanks are restored, it is a good native tree to keep on the bund.

Related plants

Also in Rubiaceae

Questions about Swamp jasmine

Is Swamp jasmine karai?

Not quite. Spiny karai is Catunaregam spinosa, a close cousin of drier ground.

What older names does Tamilnadia uliginosa go by?

Randia uliginosa and Gardenia uliginosa.

Can you eat the fruit raw?

No. Where it is eaten, it is cooked.

Sources

Educational page about a plant. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not an offer to sell. Traditional use is historical. If you need care, ask a licensed clinician. Questions: hello@meevamed.com.