95 ACACIA CATECHU 



Habitat. This is a common tree in most parts of India and 

 Burmah, ascending to 3000 feet in the Himalaya valleys, gene- 

 rally growing gregariously. It is also found in Ceylon, but is 

 probably not known out of Asia. It flowers in May and June. 

 There are two forms in India, the glabrous (A. Sundra) and the 

 pubescent (A. catechuoides) ; they are otherwise quite similar. 

 The prickles are sometimes developed into hooked thorns of 

 considerable length. 



Catechu is also manufactured from A. Suma, Kurz, a very 

 closely allied species, differing only in its white bark, more 

 numerous leaflets, and shorter corolla. This is the A. Catechu of 

 most authors, including formerly Bentham, whose more recent 

 views are here followed. It is figured under that name in 

 Beddome's C F1. Sylvatica/ t. 49, and as A. campy lacantha, Hochst., 

 by Schweinfurth in ' Plantae Niloticae/ t. 1. It is the commonest 

 species in Southern India, but is scarcely known in the north of 

 that country. It is this tree, and not the true A. Catechu, which 

 is so widely spread in the forests of Eastern Tropical Africa, 

 Sennaar, Abyssinia, Zambesi land, and Mozambique. No extract 

 is, however, prepared from it on that continent. It has been 

 also planted in S. America. The spines are sometimes very 

 strong in this species. 



Roxb., Fl. Ind., ii, pp. 562-3; Brandis, Forest Flora, p. 186; 

 Oliver, Fl. Trop. Africa, ii, p. 344; Benth., in Trans. Linn. 

 Soc., xxx, p. 519; Lindl., Fl. Med., p. 268; Fliick. & Hanb., 

 Pharmacogr., p. 213. 



Official Part and Names. CATECHU NIGRUM ; an extract of the 

 heart-wood (I. P.). CATECHU; an extract prepared principally 

 from the wood of Acacia Catechu (U. S. P.). It is not now 

 official in our Pharmacopoeia : but it was recognised in the first 

 edition of the British Pharmacopoeia published in 1864; and was 

 formerly official in the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Pharma- 

 copoeias. 



Kinds of Catechu We have noticed under the head of Uncaria 

 Gamlier the more important kinds of catechu which are known in 



