542 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



tinge, with an irregular, dark-purple heartwood, close-grained, 

 fairly durable. Branchlets, leaf-buds and young leaves, with 

 soft shining generally rust-coloured hairs. Leaves distant, 

 often sub-opposite, elliptic or ovate ; secondary nerves 6-8 pair, 

 arching, prominent; blade 3-8in. long, petiole i-lin. long. Two 

 glands or swellings on petiole near top. Flowers bisexual, ^in. 

 across, sessile, dull white or yellow, with an offensive smell. 

 Spikes sometimes simple, usually in short panicles, terminal 

 and in the axils of the uppermost leaves. Bracts subulate 

 or lanceolate, longer than buds, deciduous. Limb of Calyx 

 cup-shaped, cleft half way into 5 acute, triangular segments, 

 woolly inside. Fruit more or less distinctly 5-angled, obovoid 

 from a cuneate base, sometimes ovoid or nearly globose, l-l|in. 

 long ; shape and size of fruit varies accordingly. 



Mr. Duthie writes : — " In Northern India the tree does not 

 attain to any great size, but large trees, up to 100 feet in height, 

 are often met with south of the Nerbudda." 



Uses : — Sanskrit writers describe chebulic myrobalans as 

 laxative, stomachic, tonic and alterative. They are used in 

 fevers, cough, asthma, urinary diseases, piles, intestinal worms, 

 chronic diarrhoea, costiveness, flatulence, vomiting, hiccup, 

 heart-diseases, enlarged spleen and liver, ascites, skin 

 diseases, &c. In combination with embelic and beleric 

 myrobalans, they are extensively used as adjuncts to other medi- 

 cines in almost all diseases. As an alterative tonic for promot- 

 ing strength, preventing the effects of age and prolonging life, 

 it is used in a peculiar way. (Dutt). 



Mahomedan writers consider the ripe fruit as purgative, 

 removing bile, phlegm and adjust bile. The unripe fruit is 

 most valued on account of its astringent and aperient properties, 

 and is a useful medicine in dysentery and diarrhoea. Ainslie 

 notices their use as an application to aphthae (Dymock). 



" The fruits are used as a medicine for sore-throat, by the 

 Paharias in Sikkim" (Gamble). 



Recently M. P. Apery has brought to the notice of the pro- 

 fession in Europe the value of the drug in dysentery, choleraic 



