N. 0. MENISPERMAOE.E. 
53 
Kakkfty-Kolli-Virai (Tam.) ; K&ki-Champa ; Kaka-Mari ; Vittu 
(Tel.) ; Kakamari-bija (Kan.) ; Karanta-Kattin-Kaya ; Polluk- 
K^yafMal.); Titta-wel (Sinhalese). 
A large woody twiner, bark thick, vertically farrowed or 
corrugated, young shoots glabrous. Leaves 3-6 in., broadly ovate, 
acute or obtuse, rounded or subcordate at base, sub-coriaceous, 
glabrous above, paler and with very small tufts of hair in the 
axils of the veins beneath. Petioles 2-4 in., thickened and 
prehensile at lower ends. Flowers pale, greenish-yellow, sweet- 
scented, \ in. diam , with 2 or 3 small bracts at base, on short, 
thick, divaricate pedicels, arranged on the horizontal branches 
of large glabrous panicles, 8-12 in. long, springing from the 
old leaves, buds globular. Sepals equal ultimately reflexed. 
Petals 0 ; Male FI. :■ — Anthers forming a globose head on the 
short, stout column of coherent filaments ; Female FI. : — 
Carpels usually 5, on short, globose gynophore, surrounded at 
base by a ring of ten very small bifid, fleshy staminodes, smooth, 
stigmas reflexed. Ripe carpels 1-3 (usually 3) on thickened 
branches of enlarged gynophore, nearly globose, ■§■ in., smooth, 
black. 
Parts used: — The berries, and leaves. 
Uses: — The bitter berries are sometimes used in the form of 
an ointment. This ointment is employed as an insecticide, to 
destroy pediculi, and in some obstinate forms of chronic skin 
diseases. (BentlEy and Trimen). 
The fresh leaves are used in Bengal as a snuff in the 
treatment of quotidian ague. 
Chemistry Pikrotoxin is an astringent principle of the frait. The comtner 
cial product usually melts between 102° and 200°, but after recrystallisation 
from water invariably yields a product melting at 199-200°; it is extremely bitter 
and very poisonous, producing similar effects to those obtained with strych- 
nine. Paternd and Oglialoro, Schmidt, and others regard it as a definite 
compound which is readily decomposed into pikrotoxinin and pibrotin, but, 
according to the authors (Richard Joseph Meyer and P. Bruger), it is merely 
a fixture of these two indefinite, but not molecular, proportions, namely, 
54-55 per cent, of pibrotoxiniu and 45-46 of pikrotin. It may be partially 
separated into the two constituents by boiling with benzene or chloroform, 
or by treatment with barium hydroxide ; the only method which gives 
anything like quantitative results is that with bromine water. 
