560 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Having met with such success, Mr. Armitt subsequently tried 
it on similar occasions and always with similar results.” — 
Chrysty’s Commercial Plants and Drugs, No. 7, p. 44 1884). 
N. 0. MELASTOMACE2E. 
509 . Memecylon edule, Roxb. h . f . b . i ., ii . 563 , 
Roxb. 325 . 
Fern. : — Limba (Mar.) ; Limba-toli (Kan.) ; Kashwa (Mai.) ; 
Alii chettu (Tel.) ; Kayampoovoocheddi, Casari-cheddy, Casha- 
marum (Tam.) ; Anjana, Yalki, Lokhande (Bomb.). 
Habitat : — Eastern Peninsula and Ceylon ; very common at 
Mahabaleshwar and on the Ghauts, less so in S. Concan. 
A shrub or small handsome tree. Bark thin, light-brown, 
corky, narrowly-cleft ventrically. Wood light-brown, very hard, 
close-grained. Leaves lj-3|in., elliptic or ovate-acute at both 
ends, hard, acuminate. Secondary nerves more or less obscure ; 
petiole |~5 in. Cymes pedunculate, rarely axillary, generally 
above the scars of fallen leaves. Flowers brilliant blue, in a 
compact cyme, medium-sized. Calyx-tube at the time of flowering 
sauce-shaped ; limb truncate ; Calyx sometimes pink. Disk at the 
apex of the ovary depressed, obscurely-rayed. Berry £in. diam., 
black-purple, globose, or slightly ovoid, mouth about £in. wide. 
Mr. C. B. Clarke mentions 12 varieties of this plant. 
Mr. A. K. Nairne, in his “ Flowering Plants of Western India ” writes 
“ From the mode of growth the flowers look almost as if they were parasitical 
on the tree. The colors blend in a lovely manner, and a poetical’ forest 
officer aptly described them to me as forming ‘ globes of pink and blue and 
white, like living opals’. ” 
Parts used : — The leaves and root. 
Use : — The leaves are used as a cooling astringent ; used in 
conjunctivitis as a lotion ; and, given internally in leucorrhoea 
and gonorrhoea, they should be bruised in a mortar and infused 
in boiling water. Dr. Peters found them in use in Belgaum 
as a remedy for gonorrhoea of considerable reputation. In the 
Concan, the bark, with equal proportion of cocoanut kernel, 
ajwan seeds, yellow zedoary and black pepper, is powdered and 
