N. O. OLEACE.E. 767 



Habitat : — Cultivated throughout India. 



A small, deciduous tree, 30ft., often forming coppice, scabrid 

 pilose. Bark iin. thick, light brown, rough. Wood pale- red, 

 of pale yellowish brown, moderately hard, close-grained. A 

 well-known tree, with fragrant flowers, which open at night and 

 drop off in the early morning. Kanjilal says the bark is 

 grey or greenish-white, rough. Branches quadrangular. Leaves 

 opposite, 4£ by 2Jin. or 3in., ovate, acute, coriaceous, covered over 

 with stiff white hairs on the upper surface ; pubescent beneath, 

 margin slightly recurved, entire or with distinct teeth, principal 

 nerves conspicuous beneath. Base rounded or cuneate, petiole 

 |in., not articulated. Flowers sessile, 3-7 together in pedunculate 

 heads, which are arranged in short trichotomous cymes ; bracts 

 elliptical. Calyx-tube Jin., campanulate, minutely 4-5-toothed. 

 Corolla-tube 1-j-in. long, cylindric, orange-red. Limb white, 

 spreading. Lobes 5-8, J-|in. long, emarginate, contorted in 

 bud. Anthers 2, subsessile, inserted near the mouth of the 

 Corolla-tube. Ovary 2-celled ; ovule 1 in each cell, erect. 

 Capsule £-Jin. long or fin., J-g-in. thick, orbicular, chastaceous, 

 splitting into 2 one-seeded cells. Seeds exalbuminous, radical, 

 inferior, colyledons flat. Flowers throughout the year, in the 

 Konkan during the rains. 



Use : — The leaves, according to Sanskrit writers, are useful 

 in fever and rheumatism. The fresh juice of the leaves is given 

 with honey in chronic fever. A decoction of the leaves, prepared 

 over a gentle fire, is recommended by several writers as a 

 specific for obstinate sciatica (Dutt). According to the author 

 of the Makhzan, six or seven of the young leaves are rubbed up 

 with water and a little fresh ginger, and administered in obsti- 

 nate fevers of the intermittent type, at the same time a purely 

 vegetable diet is enforced. The powdered seeds are used to 

 cure scurfy affections of the scalp (Dymock). 



In the Concan, about 5 grains of the bark are eaten with 

 betelnut and leaf, to promote the expectoration of thick phlegm 

 (Dymock). 



It is antibilious and expectorant, and useful in bilious fevers. 

 (K. L. Dey). 



