147 



THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 



By Surgeon-Major K. R. Kirtikar, i.m.s., f.l.s., 



Acting Professor of Botany, Grant Medical College. 



PART X. 



{With Plates L and Supplementary L.) 



{Continued from Vol. 1 X, page 60.) 



MORINGA PTERYGOSPERMA-(GiERT). 



Natural Order — Moringe^e. 



MARATHI— ihrsjfrpir. 



The tree is commonly known as the horse-radish tree. Some call 

 it the drum-stick tree. Sir George Birdwood calls it the smooth 

 horse-radish tree. 



ROOT. — Pungent ; young parts tomentose or puberulous. 



BARK. — Soft, gray, corky, whitish-green covered with a fine 

 brownish epidermis ; innermost part white ; external surface reticu- 

 late, about one inch thick ; deeply cracked ; the bark of the young 

 branches of some varieties of this tree is distinctly crimson ; the ven- 

 tral surface of some petioles is in such cases tinged with light crimson ; 

 the dorsal surface on the other hand is light green. 



WOOD. — Soft, light, coarse-grained, spongy, perishable, white ; 

 rather light brown says Jaikisson Indraji. Young wood and branches 

 very brittle and break with almost a resinous fracture. 



From incisions, made on the trunk by the human hand or by insects 

 which infest the bark, there exudes a pinkish, reddish gum in 

 vermicular tears. 



LEAVES.— Alternate, decompound, 1 to 2 ft. long, 2 to 3-odd-pin- 

 nate ; usually 3-odd-pinnate near the extremities of branches. 



Pinnae. — 4 to 6 pair, opposite ; the lower 3 to 4 pair, bipinnate. 



Pinnule.— -Opposite, 6 to 9 pair ; the four lower pair generally with 

 3 to 7 leaflets ; the rest consisting of single leaflets. 



Leaflets. — 6 to 9 pair, opposite, | to f inch, quite entire, ovate or 

 obovate, blunt ; lateral nerves indistinct, glaucous-green above, 

 pale beneath, slightly pubescent along the midrib beneath, caducous 

 as well as the pinnules. 



