Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/342

262 cylindric ; leaflets quite entire, 5-12in. oblong, elliptic-oblong, lanceolate or oblanceolate, tip rounded, acute or acuminate, shortly petioled ; nerves very faint, spreading. Cymes panicled or subracemose, short, shortly peduncled, few-flowered. Flowers about ¾in. diam., very fragrant, white. Calyx cup-shaped, entire or irregularly 4-6-lobed, with the margin truncate. Petals 4, fleshy (4-5, says Brandis), recurved, imbricate. Stamens 8-10, filaments sometimes united almost to the top, subulate, inserted round a cupular disk. Ovary 2-4-celled, style stout, deciduous ; ovules 2, superposed in each cell. Berry oblong, yellow when ripe, size of a pigeon's egg, rind smooth, thick, obscurely 3-lobed, pulp resinous, odoriferous. Seeds 1-3, pointed, ovoid ; cotyledons fleshy, albumen O.

Use : — The berries are used in preparing a perfumed medicinal oil (Kakkolaka), and are sold in the bazaars of Bengal under the name of Kakala ; they must not be confounded with Kshirakakkoli, a pseudo-bulb from Nepal, composed of from 8 to 10 ovoid fleshy scales. Kakkola and Kshirakakkoli are chiefly of interest as being the only two constituents of the Ashta-varga or ' group of eight medicines,' which are known to the modern Hindus. The Sanskrit names of the other six plants are, Rishabha, Jivaka, Meda, Mahameda, Riddhi and Vriddhi. (Pharmacographia Indica, Vol I, 268).

Vern. : — Kurwi Wágeti ; Kari wágeti, ranyid (Bomb and Goa): Nat-Kanta (Nepal); Jhunok (Lepcha.)

Habitat : — Sikkim, Himalaya, Bhotan ; Khasia Mountains ; Western Peninsula ; the Western Forests, from the Concan southward.

A stout, climbing, evergreen, thorny shrub. Shoots densely pubescent, the older branches, with sharp recurved axillary spines |in. long. Bark white, corky, vertically cleft. Wood white, hard, close-grained. Leaves coriaceous, numerous, 2-4in-,