Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/229

Rh Tilnor (Assam); Manho-la (Garo); Dampel, onth, osth. (Bomb); Jhárambi (Mar.); Jwara, memadi tamalumu,chitakamaraku, (Tel.)

Habitat : — Eastern Bengal and the Eastern Himalaya, from Sikkim to the Khasia Mountains, Eastern Peninsula, Western Peninsula, the Circars, and from the Bombay ghats southward. There is a tree in the Victoria Gardens, Bombay.

A medium-sized evergreen tree. Bark brown, ¼in. thick, exfoliating in small round scales. Wood dark-greyish-brown, very hard, and close-grained; concentric bands thin, white, numerous. Pores very scanty, moderate sized, scattered and unevenly distributed. Medially rays fine, white, numerous, but irregular. Yellow gum copious (Gamble). Foliage dense, dark green, shining. Branchlets quadrangular, dilated below the nodes. Leaves thickly coriaceous, oblong or elliptic-oblong, acute; blade S-14in.long, petiole ¾-1 in.long, thick-channelled on the upperside, secondary nerves numerous, parellel with shorter intermediate nerves. Flowers white, fasciculate on thick uneven, axillary protuberances. Pedicels 1 in.. petals ⅓in.. orbicular spreading, thin. Male flowers: Stamens in 5 broad bundles of 3-5, on a fleshy lobed disk. Bisexual: Ovary 5-celled, stigma 5-lobed. Fruit dark yellow, 2-3in. diam, of the size of an apple, 5-celled; subglobose, pointed. Seeds 1-4, oblong.

Use : — The fruit, which is yellow and of the size of a small apple and very acid, sweetish when ripe, edible, is used for the same purposes as that of G. indica; it is dried and made into a kind of Amsúl. In bilious conditions, a sherbet made with about 1 oz. of the Amsul, with a little rock-salt, pepper, ginger, cumin and sugar, is administered (Dymock.)

Syn.: — Calysaccion longifolium, Wight. Nágakésaram-pushpam (Sans.)

Vern. :— Nág-késar-ké-phúl (the flowers), (Hind.); Nágésarer-phúl (the flowers), (Beng.); Surangi, tambra nágkesar (Bomb.);