784 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
A small, deciduous tree, with crooked trunk and thick fleshy 
branches, full of tenacious milky juice. Bark, with a smooth 
peppery outer layer, grey, shining, exfoliating in small flakes. 
Wood yellowish-white, soft. Branches swollen and dichotormous. 
Leaves alternate, lanceolate or oblauceolate acute at both ends, 
spirally arranged at the ends oE branches, loin., petiole l-Isin., 
1-glandular at the top. Secondary nerves numerous, straight, 
transverse, joined by straight intramarginal veins. Flowers 
fragrant, large, white, slight crimson, streaked without, pale yel- 
low within, near the centre, in compound pedunculate cymes, 
usually when the tree is leafless. Fruit very seldom seen in 
India, follicular. Seeds winged. Corolla deciduous, before the 
anthers are mature “and the ovary is mature enough to receive 
the pollen. I found a pair of follicles Din. long each, and about 
lin. broad, in Satara, on a tree, in March 1898, in one of the 
cantonment-gardens. I had the honour of presenting one of 
them to Emeritus Professor Woodrow of the College of Science, 
Poona. The follicle, figured in the Litlio plate of this work, is 
from a drawing made for me by Mr. J. Berrimau-Vears of Rat- 
nagiri of the original follicle now in my possession. I have 
grown in pots in my garden a variety of this plant, with 
flowers deep crimson outside and orange, yellow within.” (K. R. 
Kirtikar). 
Parts useil ; — The bark, leaves, juice, branches and flower- 
buds. 
Uses : — Mir Muhammad Hussain describes the tree under 
the name of A’Chin, ar\d states that the root bark is a strong 
purgative, and also a useful remedy in gonorrhoea and for 
venereal sores. He recommends butter milk to be given in 
cases of excessive purgation after its use. Plasters made of the 
bark are said to be useful in dispersing hard tumors (Pharma- 
cographia Indica, Vol. II, p. 421.) 
Dr. Hove, in 1787, found the tree growing abundantly 
on Malabar Hill, and mentions that the inhabitants used 
it for intermittents, as we do cinchona. S. Arjun 
(Boynhay Drugs) writes that the leaves, made into a 
poultice, are used to dispel swellings ; the milky juice is 
