772 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
(Dr. Milach.j The fruit is also held to be purgative. Ainslie 
states that the bark of the stem is a little warm and somewhat 
acrid, and is recommended by Native physicians to be used as a 
decoction in low fever, and as a stimulant and tonic in amenor- 
rhoea. The dose of the decoction is half a teacupful twice daily. 
(Materia Medica.) The shoots and leaves are pungent, and are 
considered by the Natives of the Punjab as an antidote to 
poisons of all sorts. (Murray.) The juice of the leaves is given 
in scurvy. The leaves are used by the country-people in the 
south of Bombay as an external application in rheumatism ; 
they are heated and tied up in thin cotton cloth. (Dymock.) The 
bruised bark of the roots is acrid, and acts as a vesicant. 
(Ainslie.) It is “ remarkably acrid ; bruised and applied to the 
skin, soon raises blisters, for which purpose the Natives often 
use it. As a stimulant, it promises to be a medicine possessed 
of every considerable powers.” (Roxburgh.) 
The tree derives its Persian name (darakht-i-miswak, or 
tooth-brush tree) from the fact that the wood is much employed 
for the manufacture of tooth-brushes, and it is supposed by the 
Natives that tooth-brushes made of it strengthen the gums, 
keep them from becoming spongy, and improve digestion. 
(Stewart and Murray.) 
745. S. Oleoides, Dene, h.f.b.i., hi. 620. 
Vern.: — Jhal(H.); Kabbar ; Jhar ; Mithi-didr (Sind); Jal, 
ran (Pb.) ; Khikan (Bomb.); Tvhikhanela, pilu (Mar.) ; Ughai ; 
Koku (Tam.) 
Habitat : —Punjab, Central and Northern and Sindh in the 
plains; Menvara, Trans-Indus. 
A large evergreen tree or shrub. Bark Jin. thick whitish 
grey, tessellated- Wood light red moderately hard with a small 
irregular purple heartwood. Branches many, spreading, whitish. 
Leaves dull grey, linear or narrowly lanceolate, acute, 2 by J in.; 
petiole \ in. Panicles mostly reduced to axillary fascicles of short 
spikes 1-1| in. Rachises after flowers have dropped rough from 
the crowded scars. Flowers greenish-white, sessile. Calyx about 
ijin. long, divided about J way down into 4 rounded lobes. 
