LEGUMINOSZE. 473 
_ Southern India. He also wrote on medicine, and his healing 
. ‘Spirit is said still to haunt the mountains of Courtallam. Tothe 
present day his works are held in the highest estimation in the 
: South of India. The flowers are sacred to Shiva and are sup- 
_ posed to represent the male and female generative organs. 
The bark is very astringent, but not bitter, as stated in the 
; Pharmacopeia of India, where it is recommended as a tonic by 
4 Dr, Bonavia. The statement that it is a bitter tonic occurs 
: also in the Bengal Dispensatory. In Bombay the leaves or 
_ flowers are made use of by the natives, their juice being 
_& popular remedy in nasal catarrh and headache; it is blown 
_ Up the nostrils and causes a very copious discharge of fluid, 
relieving the pain and sense of weight in the frontal sinuses.* 
_ The root of the red flowered variety, rubbed into a paste with 
:. water, is applied in rheumatism; from 1 to 2 tolas of the 
 Toot-juice are given with honey as an expectorant in catarrh ; 
_ paste made of the root with an equal quantity of Stramonium 
q Toot is applied to painful swellings. The flowers are cooked 
_ and eaten as a vegetable. The leaves are said to be aperient. 
_ Rumpbius states that a poultice of the leaves is so popular a 
4 remedy in Amboyna for bruises, that the tree has become no- 
_torious as the “solatinm et auxilium illorum qui vapulantur,” 
and people who plant it near their houses are laughed at. on 
this account. It is a curious coincidence that the Sanskrit 
name Vranéri signifies “ enemy of sores” (Vrana-ari), 
‘6 Description—A tree of very short duration, attaining & 
height of about 30 feet ina few years and then dying. 
leaves are abruptly pinnated, leaflets 21 pairs or fewer, oblong- 
_ Ovate, 1 tol} inch long; taste a little acid and astringent. The 
calyx is campanulate, two-lipped, flowers papilionaceous, white 
_ or red, very large and fleshy in 2 to 4 flowered axillary racemes, 
taste mucilaginous and bitterish, legumes pendulous, very long, 
__ *® This kind of medicament is the piveyxurov of Galen. In Serib. Larg. 
Jomp. 7, we read :—‘ Per nares ergo purgatur caput tis reb : 
Cornu quod rhynenchytes voeatur ; Hederm sueco per se, vel betw sneco, cum 
-exiguo flore gris, vel cyelamini succo mixto lacte aut aqua pari mensura. — 
The | 
us infusis per 
