1106 INDIAN MEDIC1NAI PLANTS. 



male flower or with a slender style and small stigma. Stamens 

 9-13, filaments liairy. 



Uses : — Ainslie writes : " The bark is mildly astringent, 

 and has a considerable degree of balsamic sweetness." " It is 

 used by the hill people in the cure of diarrhoea." Stewart 

 writes : — " The bark with that of Tetranthera Roxburghii, Nees 

 (Litsasa sebifera, Pers , var. proper) is officinal, being consider- 

 ed stimulant, and after being bruised, applied, fresh or dry, to 

 contusions, and sometimes mixed with milk and made into a 

 plaster." Campbell confirms the above, writing : " The pow- 

 dered bark is applied to the body for pains arising from blows 

 or bruises, or from hard work ; it is also applied to fractures in 

 animals." The seeds yield an oil which is used medicinally. 

 The medicinal properties above enumerated are very similar to 

 those of the better-known, and more largely employed, L 

 sebifera, Pers., the venacular names for which also strongly 

 resemble —and, indeed, in certain dialects are identical with— 

 those of this species. 



1094. L. Stocksii, Hook., h.f.b.l, v. 176. 



Vem. — Pisi (Mar.). 



Habitat. — The Concan and Canara, on the Ghats and 

 Mahableshwar Hills. 



A large tree, glabrous, except the brown velvety inflores- 

 cence, and very minute hairs occasionally on underside of 

 leaves; branches stout. Bark smooth, greyish-brown. Wood 

 yellowish-grey, moderately hard. Leaves l-2in. broad, l-2in., 

 often of a purplish or brown glaucous hue beneath, greenish 

 above with impressed nerves, coriaceous, elliptic, oblong or 

 oblanceolate, alternate, rarely ovoid, acute or acuminate, very 

 finely, but distinctly, reticulate and sometimes puberulous 

 beneath, with 10-13 pairs of strong nerves ; petiole i-Jin. 

 Female umbels shortly pedicelled ; flowering nearly Jin. diam., 

 6-8-fid, in stout sub -erect racemes, l-3in. long. Male heads i-Jin. 

 diam. before opening. Perianth grey-silky. Perianth-tube oblong, 

 turbinate in flower. Stamens (of female) reduced to 2 glands 

 and a ligule. Fruiting umbels sometimes solitary or corymbose. 



