560 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Having met with such success, Mr. Armitt subsequently tried 

 it on similar occasions and always with similar results." — 

 Chrysty's Commercial Plants and Drugs, No. 7, p. 44 -1884J. 



N. 0. MELASTOMACEJE. 



509. Memecylon edule, Roxb. h.f.b.l, ii. 563, 

 Roxb. 325. 



Vern. : — Limba (Mar.) ; Limba-toli (Kan.) ; Kashwa (Mai.) ; 

 Alii chettu (Tel.) ; Kayampoovoocheddi, Casari-cheddy, Casha- 

 marum (Tarn.) ; Anjana, Yalki, Lokhande (Bomb.). 



Habitat : — Eastern Peninsula and Ceylon ; very common at 

 Mahabaleshwar and on the Ghauts, less so in S. Concan. 



A shrub or small handsome tree. Bark thin, light-brown, 

 corky, narrowly-cleft ventrically. Wood light-brown, very hard, 

 close-grained. Leaves lj-3iin., elliptic or ovate-acute at both 

 ends, hard, acuminate. Secondary nerves more or less obscure ; 

 petiole i-5 in. Cymes pedunculate, rarely axillary, generally 

 above the scars of fallen leaves. Flowers brilliant blue, in a 

 compact cyme, medium-sized. Calyx-tube at the time of flowering 

 sauce-shaped ; limb truncate ; Calyx sometimes pink. Disk at the 

 apex of the ovary depressed, obscurely-rayed. Berry i'm. diam., 



black-purple, globose, or slightly ovoid, mouth about iin. wide. 



Mr. G. B. Clarke mentions 12 varieties of this plant. 



Mr. A. K. Nairne, in his " Flowering Plants of "Western India " writes :— 

 " From the mode of growth the flowers look almost as if they were parasitical 

 on the tree. The colors blend in a lovely manner, and a poetical forest 

 officer aptly described them to me as forming ' globes of pink and blue and 

 white, like living opals'. " 



Parts used : — The leaves and root. 



Use : — The leaves are used as a cooling astringent ; used in 

 conjunctivitis as a lotion ; and, given internally in leucorrhoea 

 and gonorrhoea, they should be bruised in a mortar and infused 

 in boiling water. Dr. Peters found them in use in Belgaum 

 as a remedy for gonorrhoea of considerable reputation. In the 

 Concan, the bark, with equal proportion of cocoanut kernel, 

 ajwan seeds, yellow zedoary and black pepper, is powdered and 



