N. 0. R0SACAE. 
527 
Use : —The dried petals are slightly tonic and astringent, 
and. useful in debility. They are officinal in the Indian and 
British Pharmacopoeias. 
476. R. alba Linn, h.f.b.i., ii.364. 
Vern : — Swet or Sevanti gulab (H. and B.) ; Gul-seati (Pb.) 
Syn.: — R. glandulifera, Roxh. 407. 
Habitat : — Cultivated in India. 
Caucasus, Afghanistan ? (J. D. Hooker). 
Leaflets 5-7, large, grey, rugose, downy and pale beneath. 
Flowers large white pale, or bluish, double. Sepals often 
pinnatifid. 
Use : — The flowers are used as a cooling medicine in fevers, 
also in palpitation of the heart (Baden Powell.) The petals 
made into gulkand in Poona (a preserve with cane-sugar). 
477. Gydonia vulgaris Pers, h.f.b.i., ii. 369. 
Syn Pyrus cydonia, Linn. Roxh, 406. 
Vern : •— Bihi (H.) ; Bamtsunt, bamsutu (Kashmir) ; Shimai- 
madala virai (Tam.). 
Eng : — The Quince. 
Habitat : —Cultivated in N.-W. India. 
A large shrub ; branehlets, underside of leaves, peduncles 
and calyx white-tomentose. Wood light brown, soft, even-grain- 
ed. Leaves ovate from an obtuse base, entire; petioles short, 
stipules oblong, obtuse, glandular-serrate. Flowers white, 2in. 
across. Calyx-lobes leafy, glandular-serrate, longer than tube. 
Fruit large, clothed with grey, woolly tomentum ; 5-celled ; 
endocarp cartilaginous. Seeds many, testa mucilaginous. 
Flowers in March and April. 
Parts used : — The seeds. 
Use : — The sweet and sub-acid quinces are -commonly eaten 
as a fruit by the Arabs and Persians, and are considered 
cephalic, cardiacal and tonic. The leaves, buds and bark of 
the tree are domestic remedies among the Arabs on account 
of their astringen t properties. In India, the seeds are consi- 
dered cold, moist, and slightly astringent, and are one of the 
most popular remedies in native practice, the mucilage being 
