756 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS, 



with honey. The leaves, boiled in gingelly oil and added to 

 the pulverised bark, are considered a good remedy in Beri-beri. 

 The bark is astringent, and yeilds a kind of gummy t fluid. 

 Leaves, ground and mixed with turmeric and ginger, are used 

 as cataplasms for tumors (abscesses ?) (Drury). 



N. 0. EBENACE^E. 



727. Diospyros montana, Roxb. h.f.b.l, hi. 555 ; 

 Roxb. 415. 



Vern. : — Tendu, bistend (Hind.); Neori, bhori (Bundelkhand); 

 Hirek, keindu, temru, pasendu (Pb.) ; Makar-tendi, banda, 

 muchi tanki, yerra goda (Tel.) ; Tembhurni, govindu, lohari 

 (Mar) ; Tendu, bulguni, Kalagunda, (Kan). 



Habitat :— From the Himalaya, throughout India (except 

 Sindh and Northern Punjab). 



A large shrub, or small deciduous tree, often spinous. Trunk 

 usually crooked covered with dark rust colored nearly smooth 

 bark. Branches sometimes spinescent. Branchlets and young 

 leaves softly tomentose ; branchlets soon glabrous. Bark thin, 

 grey or greyishblack, rough, when old, exfoliating in small scales. 

 Wood grey, often tinged with yellow or brown, streaked with 

 narrow patches or darker colour, especially towards the centre, 

 but no regular ebony ; heart wood soft to moderately hard. Graham 

 Anderson says, from Mysore, that the wood is difficult to cut with 

 the axe (Gamble). Leaves bitter (Kanjilal), thinly chartaceous, 

 ovateoblong, base rounded or cordate, blade 2-4in., petiole slender, 

 £-yin. long, secondary nerves 6-8 pair, slender ; " usually glab- 

 rous, sometimes pubescent beneath ; or on both sides, venation 

 in conspicuous beneath " (Trimen). Flowers white, as a rule, 

 4-merous. Male flowers velvety, shortly pedunculate, or nearly 

 sessile, usually 2-8fid, segments obtuse, velvety on both sides. 

 Corolla iin. long, campanulate, outside glabrous or pubescent; 

 lobes short, spreading. Stamens 16, in opposite pairs, united at 

 the base, the outer longest. Anthers lanceolate, awned, glabrous. 

 Female flowers axillary, solitary, drooping, on short pedicels. 

 Calyx segments ovate, |in. long. Corolla nearly glabrous out- 



