0°) eerraceae 
WALSURA PISCIDIA, Foz: 
F ig.— Wight Lit. 4. 7.55, Soncactrechins trifeliatad 
Hab, —W. Peninsula, Malabar, Travancore, Ceylon. ‘The 
‘ bark, ma 
Vernacular.—Walsura (Tam.), Walurasi (Tel.). . 
_ History, Uses, &c.—Roxburgh records that the bark 
is used to stupefy fish in India, and that fish so caught are not 
' considered unwholesome. Corre and Lejanne state that in 
the Antilles the tree is known as Herbe a mauvaises gens OF . 
Herbe a méchants, and that the bark acts as a dangerous — 
emmenagogue and violent emetic. _ , ’ 
Forskahl mentions a species (Trichilia emetica), called oy 
(Rukeh) by- the Arabs, the fruit of which is their Jauz-cl-kat 
or emetic nut, and is used also in hair washes to kill lice, and 
made into an unguent, to cure itch. In India the Maho- 
metans have‘adopted the fruit of Randia dumetorum as @ 
_ substitute for the true Jauz-el-kai of the Arabs. (See Randa.) 
Mr. Hollingsworth,- Assistant to the Professor of Botany ab _ 
the Medical College, Madras, has experimented with the bark ; 
off and on for about a year. He finds that it acts effectially 
as a fish poison, and he has eaten the fish killed with it and 
finds them quite wholesome. He says the.bark is stimulant: 
and expectorant, and thinks it must contain saponin. . 
— Description.—The bark kindly supplied by Mr. Hollings- 
worth is about a quarter of.an inch thick, and caw easily be 
divided into a thick suber of a brown colonr, very deeply and 
‘irregularly fissured in a longitudinal direction on the outer 
_ surface, with a tendency to separate in flakes; and an inner: 
portion or liber of a light cinnamon coldur,. and very hard and _ 
compact. The taste is bitter and astringent, a. transverse 
section of the’bark magnified shows very numerous groups of 
-_ stony cells arranged in rows at:reguiar distances amongst the — 
liber tissue. ‘ : | ae 
