''Sapindus trifoliatus'', the South India soapnut or three-leaf soapberry, is a species of flowering plant in the family

Sapindaceae The Sapindaceae are a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales known as the soapberry family. It contains 138 genera and 1858 accepted species. Examples include horse chestnut, maples, ackee and lychee. The Sapindaceae occur in tempera ...

, native to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...

, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, and introduced to eastern tropical Africa,

Rodrigues Rodrigues (french: Île Rodrigues, link=yes ; Creole: ) is a autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, about east of Mauritius. It is part of the Mascarene Islands, which include Mauritius and Réunion. Rodr ...

, and Trinidad and Tobago. An evergreen tree reaching , its seeds are rich in

saponin Saponins (Latin "sapon", soap + "-in", one of), also selectively referred to as triterpene glycosides, are bitter-tasting usually toxic plant-derived organic chemicals that have a foamy quality when agitated in water. They are widely distributed ...

s, and are both collected in the wild and cultivated to make soap for washing fabrics.

References

trifoliatus Non-timber forest products Flora of Pakistan Flora of India (region) Flora of Bangladesh Flora of the Andaman Islands Flora of Myanmar Flora of Sri Lanka Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Plants described in 1753 {{Sapindales-stub