144 



NDIAN MEDICINAL PLANT? 



rnn together into more or less concentric patches, sometimes 

 long and continuous, more often subdivided. Medullary rays 

 moderately broad, not very numerous, of the same colour as the 

 patches'' (Gamble). Leaves thickly coriaceous, 6-10 in. by 

 2j-4| in.; nerves regular, close inarching, with an intramarginal 

 one ; numerous, parallel li alternating with shorter intermediate 

 nerves (Brandis). Petiole short, thick. Flowers tetramerous, 

 " bisexual, solitary or in pairs at the ends of branchiets, 2 in. 

 diara." (Brandis) Male flower in 3-9-flowered terminal fas- 

 cicles ; pedicels short. Sepals orbicular, concave, persistent. 

 Petals broad, ovate, fleshy ; yellow, red or purple. Stamens sur- 

 rounding the rudimentary ovary in four masses ; indefinite ; 

 filaments slender, flat at the base and sometimes connate, anthers 

 ovate-oblong, 2-eelled. Hermaphrodite flowers, 2 in. diam., 

 solitary or germinating at the tips of young branches; pedicels 

 J in., thick, woody. Sepals and petals as in the Male. Stamens 

 many, filaments slender, connate below. Female flower : — 

 Ovary, 4-8-celled, stigma sessile, thick o-8-lobed, ovate, solitary. 

 Fruit, a berry as large as an orange, globose, smooth, dark 

 purple ; pericarp or rind firm, spongy, thick, full of yellow 

 resinous juice. Seeds large, flattened, embedded in snowy-white, 

 or pinkish delicious pulp, which is botanically called the aril. 

 This pulp it is that gives the fruit its value as one of the finest 

 fruits of the Eastern Tropics, and one of the most highly appre- 

 ciated, delicious products of the Eastern and Western Hemis- 

 pheres. Flowers from November to February. Fruit ready in 

 May and June. Pierre has examined more than 1,500 Mangos- 

 teen trees, without finding a single male flower. But he adds 

 that several species produce male flowers when young, and female 

 flowers at a later age. f Brandis). 



1 have seen a tree of this in the Dapoli English Church 

 (Mission)— K. R. K. 



Parts used: — The rind, fruit, bark and leaves. 



Use : — The rind is used as an astringent medicine for diar- 

 rhoea and dysentery. ft has been found very useful in chronic 

 diarrhoea in children by Waring and others. (Ph. Ind. ; p. 31.) 



It has also been used as a febrifuge (Dymockj. 



