Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/292

212 Habitat:—Generally distributed, and frequently cultivated in the warmer parts of India and Ceylon.

A small tree, a native of Tropical America, but frequently cultivated in the warmer parts of India and Ceylon. Bark brown rough. Wood white or yellowish or light brown, soft, even-grained. Annual rings faintly marked. Pores moderate-sized, fairly numerous, often subdivided. Meduallary rays moderately broad to broad, not numerous, conspicuous in the silver-grain on a radical section. The tree is easily grown and propagated, "planted or run wild," adds Gamble. Herbaceous portions tomentose. Leaves from an unequal-sided base, obliquely cordate, ovate-oblong or lanceolate, acuminate, serrate, scabrid or glabrescent above, pubescent beneath; base 5-7-nerved; petiole short. Flowers numerous, small, yellow and purple in terminal and axillary panicles, which are twice the length of the leaves; or in multifid cymes. Flower-buds globose. Calyx 1½ in. bell-shaped, stellate-hairy; sepals ultimately reflexed; petals exceeding the Calyx, claw concave. 5 Petaloid Staminodes alternating with 5 filaments each, bearing several anthers. Anthers concealed in the hood of the petals. Capsule 5-valved, lin. long, oblong obtuse, or ovoid, woody, with obtuse black tubercles, resembling a mulberry.

Part used:—The bark.

Use:—In Martinique, the infusion of the old bark is esteemed as a sudorific, and as useful in cutaneous diseases and diseases of the chest (Lindley.)

The bark is tonic and demulcent, and is used with benefit in some of those cases in which calumba and gentian are indicated (Moodeen Sheriff.)

The inner bark is esteemed as a remedy for elephantiasis in West Indies (Watt.)

 

188. Grewia tiliœfolia, Vahl. 386, Roxb. 431.

Sans.:—Dharmana, Dhanurvriksha; Dhanvan.

