FLORA OF ADEN. 
109 
the Arabs. It was generally employed in affections of the liver and 
spleen, and also in amenorrhoea. 
For farther details see Ibn-el-Beithar, III, 134-137. 
8. Capparis decidua (Forsk.) Pax is Engl.-Prantl. Nat. Pflanzenf. 
Ill, 2, p. 231. 
Sodada decidua Forsk FI. Aeg.-Arab. p. 81; Schweinf. Beitr. FI. 
Aethiop, p. 74. 
Capparis aphylla Both Nov. PL sp. p. 238; DC. Prodr. I, 246 ; 
Oliv. FI. trop. Afr. I. 
Capparis sodada R. Br. in Denh. Trav. p. 255 ; Boiss. FI. Or. II, 419. 
Arabic name : — Sodad. 
Description . — A straggling, glabrous shrub, branches terete, smooth, 
green. Leaves on the young shoots only, the older branches being 
leafless, small , less than ^ inch long, linear-oblong, acute, spinous-pointed ; 
petioles very short or 0 ; stipular thorns long, sharp, straight, orange- 
yellow. 
Flowers in many-flowered corymbs, from the old branches, or from 
short lateral shoots ; pedicels slender, about | inch long. Sepals : the 
outer pubescent, ciliate, subvalvate, the lower one very saccate, acuminate, 
the upper much smaller, ovate-oblong, concave ; inner sepals elliptic, 
acute, with floccose margins. Petals red, narrow-oblong, § by J inch. 
Gynophore | inch long. 
Fruit globular, size of a cherry, glabrous, beaked, red. 
[According to Brandis the fruit is 2 inches long, inch in 
diameter, on a gynophore 1 inch long.] 
Locality : — Precise place of occurrence not mentioned by Hildebrandt. 
Distribution : — Upper Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, Darfur, Somaliland, 
Socotra, Central and Southern Arabia, Punjab, Sind, Deccan, Gujarat to 
Tuticorin. 
Note : — I have included this species on the authority of Krause who 
has the following remark in his list : “ As Hildebrandt rarely gives 
the exact locality and mostly omits it entirely it is quite possible that C. 
decidua (Forsk,) Pax which by no other botanist has been reported to 
occur on the two peninsulas of Aden and Little Aden, does not grow 
there at all, but may be found in the distant neighbourhood . ” 
Uses : — The young flower-buds and fruits are eaten. In India the 
buds are pickled and the fruits eaten both when green and when fully 
ripe. The wood is employed in India for making combs, small beams 
