TERMINALIA BELERICA. (Nat. ord. Combretacese.) 



-Cor Gen. Char, see under " Terminalia tomentosa." 



1 ERMINALIA BeLERIC A. (Roxb.) A very large tree, with an erect trunk and large spreading head, flowering in the 

 hot season, leaves crowded about the extremities of the branches, long petioled, oval to obovate obtuse or shortly acuminated, quite 

 entire glabrous above and generally also beneath, 6 to 7 inches long by 2£ broad, with 2 opposite glands on the upper side of the apex 

 of the petiole and sometimes near the base, spikes axillary solitary simple erect almost the length of the leaves, flowers small dirty-grey 

 fetid, the male towards the apex of the spike and shortly pedicellate with a glandular disk at the bottom of the calyx, hermathrodite 

 below and sessile, drupe obovate obscurely 5-angled, the size of a nutmeg, fleshy, covered with grey silky down. Roxh. Fl. Ind. ii. p. 

 341 ;— W. A. Prod. p. 313. 



This fine large tree is common throughout the Madras Presidency, Bengal, Bombay, Birmah and Ceylon; it is universally known in 

 this' Presidency by the name Thani, which is both Tamil and Telugu. in South Canara it is called Santl, in Bengal Bahera, in Bombay Bherda, 

 in Birmah Titseim, and in Ceylon Bidu. The wood is whUe ani rather soft, but much used in some parts of the Presidency, and said to be tolerably 

 durable; it answers well for packing-cases and coffee boxes, and catamarans and grain measures are made from it, and in Malabar and South 

 Canara the tree is sometimes hollowed out for canoes ; the kernels of the fruit are eaten by the natives, and a.lso used medicinaUy ; the fruit it used 

 in dying and tanning, and the leaves also for the latter purpose ; the dried fruit is said to be astringent and laxative (as the dZgle fruit) ; an oil 

 is expressed from the seed, which is_ used for strengthening the hair, and a gum issues from wounds in the baric. The tree has been introduced into 

 the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. 



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