MYSbSl Aim COOBQ. IS'? 



trunk, but small and crooked in tlie drier Taluks. 

 Magnificient specimens are found in the reserved 

 forests of the Malnad, although the majority of them 

 are said to be more or less hollow in the trunk. Flow- 

 ers in terminal panicles, whitish or pale yellow, 

 " often attacked by a cynips producing numerous 

 galls which simulate fruit. " Fl. of Brit. Ind. 



Wood dark brown, with darker streaks, hard, but 

 not very durable. Weight 50 — 70 lb. per cubic foot* 

 Although the wobd does not season well, and is apt 

 to split, still it is extensively employed, and fetches 

 a good price in the timber market. It is an excellent 

 fuel tree, and when the hill forests have been tapped 

 by one or two loop lines of railway it will afford 

 large quantities of the finest locomotive fuel. 



The leaves are prized as manure for the areca-nut 

 gardens, and in north-west Mysore the trees are 

 heavily pollarded on that account. When the hill 

 people bathe in oil they afterwards employ Matii 

 leaves to clean their bodies, first soaking the leaves 

 for a time in warm Water, A mucilaginous s'ub- 

 stance obtained from the soaked leaves, by pressure^ 

 is taken internally, after a hot bath, to cool the sys- 

 tem. It is mixed, in some proportion, with jaggery 

 and cardamom powder, and swallowed soon aftqr th^ 

 bath. The bark is locally used for tanning, and 

 Anderson, Lovery and others, assert that a pungent 

 lime is obtained from it, a statement which requires 

 vei-ification, as in Pharmacographia Indica the 

 iim'e properties- are attributed to Terminalia ArjuTia^ 

 whil§ the species under notice is not mentioned in 

 the above work. There are also three distinct 

 varieties of the species which may or may not pos- 

 sess properties of a uniform nature. 



CTiltivation— The Matti affects a moist deep soil,, 

 consisting of clay ot virgin forest land, where the 

 rainfall ranges from 75 to 100 inches per ^nnum. 

 It attains its largest diiiieiisions in the valleys of iltie 



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