V 



BIONONIACEJ^. 21 



is described as cooling, sAveet, diuretic, and tonic, and is recom- 

 mended in dyspepsia, dropsy, cough, and heat of blood. 



P. S. Mootoosawmy says that in Tan j ore the flowers are 

 taken in the form of a confection as an aphrodisiac. The flowers 

 pounded with honey are said to stop troublesome hiccough, and 

 -the ashes of the bark are used in preparing alkaline ley and 

 caustic pastes. The bark is in use throughout India from its 

 being one of the ingredients in the Dasamula or "ten barks." 

 (See Trihulus terrestris.) In parts of India where this tree is not 

 found, various substitutes are allowed to be used. In Malaba 

 and in the Concan 8. chelonoidcs, DC, is used as Padri. (See 

 Meede, Jlort. Mai u,, t. 25 ; Ainslie, Mai. Ind. li., p. 272.) 



Description.— TriTnk tolerably erect, though not straight. 

 Bark ash-coloured, and somewhat scabrous. Leaves opposite, 

 pinnate, with an odd one, from 1 2 to 24 inches long. Leaflets 

 opposite, from two to four pairs, oval, with long bluntish, narrow 

 points slightly serrate, having both sides downy while young, 

 and when full grown not downy and feeling harsh ; the exterior 

 pair and odd one about six inches long, by three or four broad; 

 the inferior pair, or pairs, smaller. Petioles swelled at the base, 

 roundish, when old scabrous. Panicles terminal, composed of a 

 few spreading branchlets; the first and second pairs thereof 

 opposite ; the superior dichotomous, with a solitary pedicelled 

 flower in the forks; all are downy, and somewhat \'iscid. 

 Flowers large, of a dark, duU crimson colour, exquisitely fra- 

 grant. Calyx campanulate. Border 4-cleft ; upper divisions 

 with two minute points, outside a little villous. Oorol, throat 

 ample, woolly, convex above, flat and plaited beneath. Bord 



di 



er 



and projecting, with the margins of all much curled. Filaments 

 4, fertile, and between them a small sterile one. Anthers twin 

 Germ oblong, elevated on a glandular receptacle. Stio-ma* 

 2-lobed. [Roxburgh.) Sir W. Jones gives the f oUowing descrip:. 

 tion of the flowers : -CoroUa externally light purple above 

 brownish purple below, hairy at its convexity ; internally dark 

 yellow below, amethystine above, exquisitelv fragrant ; preferred 



