STRYCHNOS NUX-VOMICA. (Nat. order Loganiacese.) 



STRYCHNOS. Linn.— GEN. CHAR. Calyx 4-or 5-lobed. Corolla with a short or cylindrical tube and 4 or 5 spreading lobes, valvate in ths 

 bud. Stamens 5, inserted in the tube, the anthers usually exserted. Ovary 2-celled, with several ovules in each cell. Style simple, with a capitate or 

 obscurely 2-lobed stigma. Fruit a globular indehiscent berry, with the rind usually hard. Seeds imbedded in pulp, more or less compressed, and often 

 reduced to one or two in each fruit. Shrubs, trees or woody climbers. Leaves opposite, 3-nerved or 5-nerved at the base, with transverse reticulate 

 veinlets, often smooth and ebining. In the climbing species there are usually spirally recurved hooks in one of the axils, in which case the subtending leaf 

 is usually reduced to a small bract, whilst the opposite leaf remains normal. Flowers in axillary or terminal cymes, clusters or panicles. Benlh. Fl. 

 Aitst. iv. p. 368. 



STRYCHNOS NUX-VOMICA. (Willd.) A middling sized tree, glabrous except the minutely pubescent inflorescence, 

 leaves ovate often obliquely so to oval or nearly quite orbicular, acute at the apex or quite rounded, thinly coriaceous shining above 

 not glaucous beneath, 3 to 5 nerved, 3-4 inches long by 2 to 3£ broad, petioles 3-6 lines long, cymes corymbose trichotomous shortly 

 pedunculate above the last pair of leaves minutely pubescent. Flowers greenish-white, calyx about | a line long puberulous, corol- 

 tube cylindrical about 5 lines long very slightly puberulous or glabrous, lobes 5 short, anthers on short filaments in the throat. Ovary 

 glabrous with numerous ovules in each cell, style as long or longer than the corol tube, stigma peltate. Fruit globular with a hard 

 shell 1^-2| inches in diameter, bright orange colored, seeds about 6 in greenish-white pulp flat orbicular about 9 lines in diameter, 

 testa greyish white smooth and satiny, albumen cartilaginous, cotyledons broad-ovate 3-4 lines long, radicle thick and nearly as 

 long as the cotyledons. Roxb. FL hid. i. p. 575. 



This tree is most common throughout this Presidency and in many other parts of India and in Ceylon, it ascends the mountains to about 

 4000 jeet elevation ; it is called Kuchld in Hindostanee, Mushti in Teligu, and Yetti in Tamil, and is known to Europeans as theNux vomica tree ; 

 in Ceylon it is called Goda-Tcaduru, and Kdjra in the Bombay Presidency; the wood is very bitter, of a light-brown color streaked with white, and is 

 impervious to the attack of white-ants'; a cubic foot unseasoned weighs about 70 lbs and when seasoned 56 lbs, its specific gravity is -896, itis hard, 

 durable and stiff, and is used in the construction of carts, house building, ploughs, cabinet purposes, &c. ; the seed is the Nux vomica of commerce, 

 which yields strychnine, but the pulp of the fruit is quite harmless and the favorite fruit of many birds, the root is used medicinally by the natives 

 as a febrifuge. 



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