N. 0. MENISPERMACEyE. 53 



Kakkay-Kolli-Virai (Tarn.); Kaki-Champa ; Kaka-Mari ; Vittu 

 (Tel.) ; Kakamari-bija (Kan.) ; Karanta-Kattin-Kaya ; Polluk- 

 Kaya (Mai.) ; Titta-wel (Sinhalese). 



A large woody twiner, bark thick, vertically furrowed or 

 corrugated, young shoots glabrous. Leaves 3-6 in., broadly ovate, 

 acute or obtuse, rounded or subcordate at base, sub-coriaceous, 

 glabrous above, paler and with very small tufts of hair in the 

 axils of the veins beneath. Petioles 2-4 in., thickened and 

 prehensile at lower ends. Flowers -p&le, greenish-yellow, sweet- 

 scented, \ in. diam , with 2 or 3 small bracts at base, on short, 

 thick, divaricate pedicels, arranged on the horizontal branches 

 of large glabrous panicles, 8-12 in. long, springing from the 

 old leaves, buds globular. Sepals equal ultimately reflexed. 

 Petals ; Male Fl. : — Anthers forming a globose head on the 

 short, stout column of coherent filaments; Female Fl. : — 

 Carpels usually 5, on short, globose gynophore, surrounded at 

 base by a ring of ten very small bifid, fleshy staminodes, smooth, 

 stigmas reflexed. Ripe carpels 1-3 (usually 3) on thickened 

 branches of enlarged gynophore, nearly globose, ■§■ in., smooth, 

 black. 



Parts used: — The berries, and leaves. 



Uses : — The bitter berries are sometimes used in the form of 

 an ointment. This ointment is employed as an insecticide, to 

 destroy pediculi, and in some obstinate forms of chronic skin 

 diseases. (Bentley and Trimen). 



The fresh leaves are used in Bengal as a snuff in the 



treatment of quotidian ague. 



Chemistry : — Pikrotoxin is an astringent principle of the fruit. The commer 

 cial product usually melts between 192° and 200°, but after recrystallisation 

 from water invariably yields a product melting at 199-200°; it is extremely bitter 

 and very poisonous, producing similar effects to those obtained with strych- 

 nine. Pateruo and Oglialoro, Schmidt, and others regard it as a definite 

 compound which is readily decomposed into pikrotoxinin and pikrotin, but, 

 according to the authors (Richard Joseph Meyer and P. Bruger), it is merely 

 a mixture of these two indefinite, but not molecular, proportions, namely, 

 54-55 per cent, of pikrotoxinin and 45-4G of pikrotin. It may be partially 

 separated into the two constituents by boiling with benzene or chloroform, 

 or by treatment with barium hydroxide ; the only method which gives 

 anything like quantitative results is that with bromine water. 



