644 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
exfoliating in irregularly shaped, softish scales. Wood 
white when cut up fresh ; if cut up dry, brownish grey, soft. 
Leaves opposite ovate-elliptic oralmost orbicular, abruptly ac .m- 
inate, finely pubescent on both surfaces, 4-10 by 3-5in ; membran- 
ous, narrowed into a petiole l-3in. ; nerves 7-10 pair ; stipules 
broad, recurved, usually glandular serrate. Flowers pedicil- 
late, white, fragrant, in dense cylindrical compound ; racemes 
in terminal drooping panicles, with linear or lanceolate bracts, as 
long as or longer than the flowers (Brandis). Corolla-tube 
slender, more than 3 times the ^ngth of the Calyx lobes, -§-in. 
Stamens 5. Filament dilated. Anthers linear. Ovary 2-celled, 
style long, exserted. Stigma spindle-shaped. Capsules x-tin., 
on recurved thick pedicels, £-|in. long, even fin., ellipsoid, 
many-seeded. Seeds flat, lenticular, winged all, round the 
margin, f by ^in. including the wing. 
Uses : — The inner bark is bitter and astringent, and is used 
as a febrifuge. The outer layer of the bark is tasteless. The 
Pharm. Indica suggests that in all future enquiries into the sub- 
ject of Indian antiperiodics, this bark should be one of the first 
to which attention should be directed. 
Regarding the constituents of the bark, Messrs. Charles 
Stanley Gibson and John Lionel Simonsen write in the Journal 
and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1916, pp. 
161-162 : — 
This bark was first subjected to a chemical examination by Broughton in 
1870, and subsequently Naylor (Pharm. Journ. 1893, 14. 811, 1884, 15, 195) inves- 
tigated it much more thoroughly. Broughton showed that it contained a 
glucoside, aesculin, and that on keeping the bark lost its bitter flavour owing 
to the hydrolysis of the glucoside with formation of aesculetin (scopoletin). 
Naylor, on the other hand, succeeded in isolating a crystalline alkaloid to 
which he gave the name hymenodyctine and the formula C I4 H 40 Nj and also 
an amorphous neutral substance of the formula C 22 H 4S G 10 . * 
From the results obtained by Naylor it seemed possible to us that the 
alkaloid might be of therapeutic value and furthermore, since it was one of 
the few alkaloids which do not contain oxygen, it should be of considerable 
scientific interest, and we decided, therefore, to attempt its isolation. 
We have isolated aesculin and scopoletin, but we have been unable to find 
any traces of an alkaloid. It would, therefore, appear that Naylor cannot have 
* This formula is obviusly incorrect, containing as it does an odd number 
of hydrogen atoms. 
