784 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



A small, deciduous tree, with crooked trunk arid thick fleshy 

 branches, full of tenacious milky juice. Bark, with a smooth 

 peppery outer layer, grey, shining, exfoliating in small flakes. 

 Wood yellowish-white, soft. Branches swollen and dichotormous. 

 Leaves alternate, lanceolate or oblanceolate acute at both ends, 

 spirally arranged at the ends of branches, 15in., petiole l-ljin., 

 1-glandular at the top. Secondary nerves numerous, straight, 

 transverse, joined by straight intramarginal veins. Flowers 

 fragrant, large, white, slight crimson, streaked without, pale yel- 

 low within, near the centre, in compound pedunculate cymes, 

 usually when the tree is leafless. Fruit very seldom seen in 

 India, follicular. Seeds winged. Corolla deciduous, before the 

 anthers are mature "and the ovary is mature enough to receive 

 the pollen. I found a pair of follicles Din. long each, and about 

 lin. broad, in Satara, on a tree, in March 1898, in one of tire 

 cantonment-gardens. I had the honour of presenting one of 

 them to Emeritus Professor Woodrow of the College of Science, 

 Poona. The follicle, figured in the Litho plate of this work, is 

 from a drawing made for me by Mr. J. Berri man- Years of Rat- 

 nagiri of the original follicle now in my possession. I have 

 grown in pots in my garden a variety of this plant, with 

 flowers deep crimson outside and orange, yellow within." (K. R. 

 Kirtikar). 



Parts use<t : — The bark, leaves, juice, branches and flower- 

 buds. 



Uses : — Mir Muhammad Hussain describes the tree under 

 the name of A'Chin, and states that the root bark is a strong 

 purgative, and also a useful remedy in gonorrhoea and for 

 venereal sores. He recommends butter milk to be given in 

 cases of excessive purgation after its use. Plasters made of the 

 bark are said to be useful in dispersing hard tumors (Pharma- 

 cographia Indica, Vol. II, p. 421.) 



Dr. Hove, in 1787, found the tree growing abundantly 

 on Malabar Hill, and mentions that the inhabitants used 

 it for intermittents, as we do cinchona. S. Arjun 

 (Bombay Drugs) writes that the leaves, made into a 

 poultice, are used to dispel swellings ; the milky juice is 



