Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/219

Rh The manna : — Gazangabin and Gazanjabin (Arab., Pers., and Bomb.) Habitat: — Throughout India, near rivers, and along the sea-coast.

A glaucous, gregarious, small tree or shrub. Bark rough greenish-brown, that of young branches reddish-brown, smooth, with small whitish specks. Wood whitish, occasionally with a red tinge, open and coarse-grained, fairly hard and tough, but not strong. Pores small and moderate-sized, numerous, more so in spring wood. Medullary rays numerous, broad, but short (Gamble). Annual rings distinct (Brandis). Leaves minute, not sheathing, apex acute, patent or loosely appressed. Flowers mostly bisexual, pentamerous, white or pink, crowded in long slender spikes, collected in dense panicles at the ends of branches and forming a large irregular mass of flowers. Bracts shorter than flowers. Disk slightly 5-or 10-crenate; filaments not dilated at base; styles short, stigma often almost sessile. Capsule 3/16 in. long, more than twice the length of the withered sepals supporting it. Flowering time, August to February (Brandis). Parts used : — The galls and manna.

Uses : — The galls are employed medicinally by the natives as an astringent. Dr. Stocks speaks highly of the astringent properties of the galls, and from personal experience recommends a strong infusion of them as a local application to foul, sloughing ulcers and phagedenic buboes. By the natives they are also administered internally in dysentery and diarrhœa (Ph. Ind., p. 29.)

The Hakims consider the manna to be detergent, aperient and expectorant (Dymock.)

Sans. : — Pichoola.

Vern. :— Lei; pilchi (Pb).); Gaz., lao (Sindh.); Lal-jhau (B. & H.)

Habitat :— From Sindh and the Punjab to Assam and the Western Peninsula, near and in the bed of rivers, and on the sea-coast.