204 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
karanj ( Mundari ,) Tele (Ho); Burkunda ( Mundarii (Bomb.); 
Kavalee talbsu (Tel.) ; Vellay putali (Tam.) ; Kalru (Ajmir). 
Habitat N. W. India, Assam, Behar, Eastern and Wes- 
tern Peninsulas, Ceylon dry country. 
A large deciduous tree. “ Bark \ in. thick, very smooth, 
white or greenish grey, exfoliating in large thin irregular papery 
flakes. Wood very soft, reddish brown, with an unpleasant 
smell, with light coloured sapwood, always feels wet. or oily. 
Pores large, often oval and sub-divided, very scanty, frequently 
filled with gum. Medullary rays moderately broad, on a radial 
section prominent as long, dark undulating bands, giving the 
wood a mottled silver-grain ; the distance between the rays is 
larger than the transverse diameter of the pores. Alternate dark 
and light concentric bands across the rays ” (Gamble'. The 
bark gives good fibre. The colloid gum is called* Katira. 
Leaves crowded at the ends of branches, tomentose beneath, 
nearly glabrous above, ; simple, cordate, shallowly-palmately- 
5-lobed ; lobes entire, acuminate, blade 8-12in., petiole 6-10in. 
long. Flowers yellow, small, in crowded, erect, more or less 
pyramidal dense panicles, clothed with a dense sticky tomen- 
tum of glandular stellate hairs ; a few flowers bisexual, mixed 
with a large number of male flowers. Staminal-column short ; 
anthers about 20. The gynophore short, thick. Calyx Jin. 
diam., campanulate, 5-parted, lobes acute, spreading. Fruit 
4-5 follicles, yellow-pubsecent, sessile, radiating, ovoid, thickly 
coriaceous. Carpels, 3 in. long, red when ripe, covered outside 
with stiff stinging bristles. Seeds 3-6 in each carpel, oblong, 
dark brown. This tree is often associated with Boswellia 
throughout the Peninsula (Brandis). 
Uses : —The leaves and tender branches steeped in water 
yield a mucilaginous extract, useful in pleuro-pneumonia in 
cattle (Watt.) 
The gum, known as karai-gond, is used as a substitute for 
tragacanth in Bombay (Dymock). 
The Santals consider the gum a useful medicine in throat 
affections (Revd. A. Campbell.) 
