336 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
rarely unarmed. “ Branchlets, petioles, underside of leaves, 
and inflorescence densely clothed with bright tawny or nearly 
white tomentum” (Brandis). “ Bark gin. thick, dark grey, 
nearly black, with irregular cracks. Wood hard, reddish ; no 
heart-wood. Annual rings distinct, in specimens from N. India, 
indistinct from those in warmer regions. Pores small or mode- 
rate-sized, scanty, often oval and sub-divided. Medullary rays 
fine, -very numerous, uniform and equidistant ; the distance 
between two rays much less than the transverse diameter of 
the pores. Pores frequently joined by short, fine, concentric lines 
(Gamble). A very variable tree. Leaves variable. 1-2| by 
§-2in., elliptic-ovate or sub-orbicular, dark green and glabrous 
above, covered beneath with a dense woolly pale coloured 
tomentum. Margin entire or serrulate. Petiole T J-§in. long. 
Flowers greenish-yellow, greenish-white, says Trimen, on short 
axillary cymes fin. long. Calyx glabrous, white. Petals 
uuguiculatle, sub-spathulate, very caducous, reflexed ; lamina 
oblong, concave or hooded. Disk fleshy, 10-lobed ; lobes 
grooved. Ovary 2-eelled. Style 2, united to the middle. Dru- 
pes 2-celled, fleshy and mealy, glabrous, mucilaginous when 
ripe and orange or red. Stone tuberculate, bony, irregularly 
furrowed, generally one-celled, never more than 2-celled. 
Use : — The fruit is said to be nourishing (mawkish), mucila- 
ginous, and pectoral and styptic. I think that the ripe fruit has 
a very agreeable taste— K.R.K. It is refreshing at any rate. 
Trimen says: — “The pulp has a pleasant sweetish flavour, 
when fully ripe. The berries are considered to purify the 
blood and to assist digestion. The bark is said to be a remedy 
in diarrhoea. The root is used in decoction in fever, and 
powdered to be applied to ulcers and old wounds. The leaves 
form a plaster in strangury (Bad'en-Powell.) 
The young leaves are pounded with those of Ficus glomer- 
ata, and applied to scorpion stings in the Concan ; they are 
also, with acacia catechu leaves, given as a cooling medicine in 
hot weather : dose 2 tolds. According to Ainslie, the root is 
prescribed in decoction by the Vytians in conjunction with 
sundry warm seeds, as a drink in certain cases of fever (Dymock). 
