378 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Ion describes it as compresso-obovate or obcordate, hence 

 gibbous. This is a more accurate description, I think. Style 

 simple, solitary, filiform, eccentric, becoming convolute, as if to 

 bring the stigma into contact with the large anther of the long 

 filament (Roxb). Stigma minute, often tinged crimson. Ovule 

 solitary, long, conical ; inserted at the summit of a suberect, 

 ascending panicle. Chalaza superior ; micropyle introse, inferior, 

 near funicle. Fruit an ash-coloured nut, kidney-shaped, dry, 

 shining, indchiscent. lin. long, ^in. broad at hilum ; some- 

 what compressed. Mesocarp soft, corky, lacunose, oleo-resinous. 

 The epicarp and pericarp coriaceous, not woody, as Baillon says. 

 The most noteworthy part of the plant is the succulent, fleshy, 

 enlarged peduncle, soft and juicy, obovoid, slightly sweet, at 

 times very acrid and irritating to the throat and tongue ; popu- 

 larly sold as the Kaju fruit in the bazaar, and of which much 

 liquor is manufactured in Goa. Seed kidney-shaped which is the 

 real fruit, corresponding to the pericarp. Testa crisp, mem- 

 branous, and easily removable, mottled reddish-brown outside, 

 deep crimson inside, of an astringent aromatic taste, separable 

 from the kernel or milkwhite cotyledons by a resinous 

 fracture ; albumen absent. 



Parts used : — The fruit, seeds and spirit. 



Uses : — The bark is said to have alterative properties. The 

 tar, which contains about 90 p. c. of anacardic acid and 10 p. c. 

 of cardol, has recently been recommended as an external appli- 

 cation in leprosy, ringworm, corns and obstinate ulcers ; it is 

 powerfully rubefacient and vesicant, and requires to be used 

 with caution. In Native practice, it is sometimes used as a 

 counter-irritant. In Europe, a tincture of the pericarp (1 to 10 

 of rectified spirit) has been used in doses of 2 to 10 minims as 

 a vermifuge. According to Basiner, the subcutaneous injection 

 of small doses of cardol produces on cold-blooded animals 

 paresis, increasing to paralysis of the extremities, stupor, para- 

 lysis of respiration and tetanic spasms. In warm-blooded 

 animals large doses are not lethal, but stupor, paralysis of the 

 extremities and diarrhoea occur, and, after death, congestion of 



