336 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



rarely unarmed. " Branchlets, petioles, underside of leaves, 

 and inflorescence densely clothed with bright tawny or nearly 

 white tomentum" (Brandis). " Bark Jin. thick, dark grey, 

 nearly black, with irregular cracks. Wood hard, reddish ; no 

 heart-wood. Annual rings distinct, in specimens from N. India, 

 indistinct from those in warmer regions. Pores small or mode- 

 rate-sized, scanty, often oval and sub-divided. Medullary rays 

 fine, very numerous, uniform and equidistant ; the distance 

 between two rays much less than the transverse diameter of 

 the pores. Pores frequently joined by short, fine, concentric lines 

 (Gamble). A very variable tree. Leaves variable. 1-2J by 

 |-2in., elliptic-ovate or sub-orbicular, dark green and glabrous 

 above, covered beneath with a dense woolly pale coloured 

 tomentum. Margin entire or serrulate. Petiole T J-§in. long. 

 Flowers greenish-yellow, greenish-white, says Trimen, on short 

 axillary cymes fin. long. Calyx glabrous, white. Petals 

 unguiculate, sub-spathulate, very caducous, reflexed ; lamina 

 oblong, concave or hooded. Disk fleshy, 10-lobed ; lobes 

 grooved. Ovary 2-celled. Style 2, united to the middle. Dru- 

 pes 2-celled, fleshy and mealy, glabrous, mucilaginous when 

 ripe and orange or red. Stone tuberculate, bony, irregularly 

 furrowed, generally one-celled, never more than 2-celled. 

 Use :— The fruit is said to be nourishing (mawkish), mucila- 

 ginous, and pectoral and styptic. I think that the ripe fruit has 

 a very agreeable taste — K.R.K. It is refreshing at any rate, 

 Trimen says: — "The pulp has a pleasant sweetish flavour, 

 when fully ripe. The berries are considered to purify the 

 blood and to assist digestion. The bark is said to be a remedy 

 in diarrhoea. The root is used in decoction in fever, and 

 powdered to be applied to ulcers and old wounds. The leaves 

 form a plaster in strangury (Baden-Powell.) 



The young leaves are pounded with those of Ficus gloraer- 

 ata, and applied to scorpion stings in the Concan ; they are 

 also, with acacia catechu leaves, given as a cooling medicine in 

 hot weather : dose 2 tolas. According to Ainslie, the root is 

 prescribed in decoction by the Vytians in conjunction with 

 sundry warm seeds, as a drink in certain cases of fever (Dymock). 



