PANDANACEM 537 



and small-pox ; it is considered by Matometaa physicians to be 

 cardiacal, ce23balic, and apbrodisiacal. They prepare a sharab 

 by boiling- the pounded stems in water, also a distilled water 

 from the flowering tops and a perfumed oil. Mir Muhammad 

 Husain states that the Hindus believe that if these prepara- 

 tions are used when small-pox is prevalent, the disease will be 

 averted, or be of so mild a form as to be free from danger. 

 The ashes of the wood are said to promote the healing of 

 wounds, and the seeds to strei 



In India the perfumed oil is prepared by placing the floral 

 bracts in sesamum oil and exposing it to the sun for forty days ; 

 fresh bracts are supplied and the old ones removed several 

 times during this period. This oil is much valued as a perfume, 

 and is used as a remedy for earache and suppuration of the 

 meatus. The distilled water may be simple or compound; 

 in the latter case the bracts are distilled with rose-water or 

 sandalwood chips; it is used as a perfume and to flavour 

 sherbets. 



The leaves of several species of Pandanus are used for 

 making mats and to polish lacquer-ware^ and the fruit has been 

 eaten in famine times. The edible species (F.edulis, Thonars), 

 common in Madagascar and the islands of the South Pacific, 

 does not occur in India. The aerial roots of the different 

 species are much used to make coarse brushes in the East, 

 a portion of the desired length being cut and the end beaten 

 until the fibres separate. 



Description. The male inflorescence is a large, ter- 

 minal, pendulous, compound, leafy panicle, the leaves of which 

 are yellowish-white, linear-oblong, pointed and concave, the 

 ,.;^.. v^-r — „ ^A ^:+i. ^^^^^t fino aTinrr^ sniTies I iu the axil 



*mar 



of each there is a single thyrse, composed of simple, small 

 racemes of long, pointed, depending anthers, which are not 

 sc die, but raised from the rachis of these partial racemes by 

 tapering filaments. The fruit is compound, oval, from six to eight 

 inches in diamater, and from six to ten long, weighing from 

 four to eight pounds, rough, of a rich orange colour, composed 



1II.~C8 



