Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/220

140 A gregarious glaucous shrub or small tree. Bark, with reticulate cracks showing the red inner bark. Wood moderately hard, outer portion white. Pores small to moderate-sized in groups or short radial lines, more abundant and larger in the spring wood. Medullary rays very prominent, short, fine to very broad, very prominent on radial section. The distance between the rays is generally three or four times the transverse diameter of the pores. The tree gives a gum of bitter sweet flavour (Gamble), Leaves sheathing, sheath tubular, apex acuminate, closely appressed, with a broad white margin. Flowers dioecious, pentamerous, purple or light pink, in stiff compact cylindrical pedunculate spikes often forming loose panicles at the ends of branches. Bracts as long as or nearly as long as the flowers. Male flowers : stamens alternating with the 5 lobes of the flesh} 7 disk, anthers distinctly apiculate. Female flowers: 5 thin linear staminodia; styles filiform, thickened at the end, longer than the ovary. Capsule 3/16 in. long, about twice the length of the withered sepals and petals at the base.

Use: — The twigs and galls are used in medicine as an astringent (Stewart).

Syn. :.— T. orientalis, Forsk. Vern. :— Faras, farwa, marlei (Pb.); Asrelei (Sind);. The galls : — Choti-mâin (H.); Magiya-mâin (Bomb-); Lal-jhâu (B. & H.)

Habitat : — Sind and the Punjab.

A moderate-sized tree, with an erect trunk, frequently 6-7 ft, in growth. Bark grey, rough; wood white moderately hard. Annual rings indistinct. Pores moderate-sized, often in groups or sub-divided, or singly between the medullary rays, scanty. Medullary rays short, fine to very broad, the distance between the rays somewhat greater than the transverse diameter of the groups of pores ; prominent on a radical section as. irregularly-shaped plates, giving the wood a handsome silver grain (Gamble). Branchlets articulate at base of sheath, often grey with saline efflorescence. Leaves sheathing, sheath 1/10 in. long,