Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/284

204 karanj (Mundari,) Tele {Ho) ; Búrkúnda (Mundari) (Bomb.) ; Kavalee talbsu (Tel.) ; Vellay pútali (Tam.) ; Kalru (Ajmir).

Habitat : — N. W. India, Assam, Behar, Eastern and Western Peninsulas, Ceylon dry country.

A large deciduous tree. " Bark ½ in. thick, very smooth, white or greenish grey, exfoliating in large thin irregular papery flakes. Wood very soft, reddish brown, with an unpleasant smell, with light coloured sap wood, always feels wet or oily. Pores large, often oval and sub-divided, very scanty, frequently filled with gum. Medullary rays moderately broad, on a radial section prominent as long, dark undulating bands, giving the wood a mottled silver-grain ; the distance between the rays is larger than the transverse diameter of the pores. Alternate dark and light concentric bands across the rays " (Gambled The bark gives good fibre. The colloid gum is called Katira. Leaves crowded at the ends of branches, tomentose beneath, nearly glabrous above, ; simple, cordate, shallowly-palmately- 5-lobed ; lobes entire, acuminate, blade 8-12in., petiole 6-10in. long. Flowers yellow, small, in crowded, erect, more or less pyramidal dense panicles, clothed with a dense sticky tomentum of glandular stellate hairs ; a few flowers bisexual, mixed with a large number of male flowers. Staminal-column short ; anthers about 20. The gynophore short, thick. Calyx ¼ in. diam., campanulate, 5-parted, lobes acute, spreading. Fruit 4-5 follicles, yellow-pubsecent, sessile, radiating, ovoid, thickly coriaceous. Carpels, 3 in. long, red when ripe, covered outside with stiff stinging bristles. Seeds 3-6 in each carpel, oblong, dark brown. This tree is often associated with Boswellia throughout the Peninsula (Brandis).

Uses : —The leaves and tender branches steeped in water yield a mucilaginous extract, useful in pleuro-pneumonia in cattle (Watt.)

The gum, known as karai-gond, is used as a substitute for tragacanth in Bombay (Dymock).

The Santals consider the gum a useful medicine in throat affections. (Revd. A. Campbell.)