Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/374

294 inserted. Ovary 4-5-celled, 2 collateral ovules in each cell. Fruit a fleshy globose drupe, pale yellow when ripe, enclosing 2, rarely more, bony, 1-seeded tuberculated stones. Fresh foliage — April or May— with the flowers or after them. Leafless during the greater part of the dry season.

Parts used : — The fruit, and juice of the leaves and stem.

Uses : — " In Salsette, near Bombay, the juice of the stem is dropped into the eye to cure opacities of the conjunctiva ; the fruit is pickled and eaten as a cooling and stomachic remedy. In the Concan, the juice of the leaves, with that of the leaves of Adhatoda Vasica and Vitex trifolia, mixed with honey, is given in asthma" (Dymock.). The epicarp of the fruit is also cooked in Bombay with the flower heads of the aroid Shevalâ plant to reduce the acrid taste of the latter, and eaten as vegetable.

Sans. : — Konshikaha, guggulu.

Vern. : — Gugal, mukul, ranghan turb (B., H., Dec, Guz.) ; Maishakshi, gukkal, gukkulu (Tam.) ; Mahi-saksh gugal (Teh)

J. Indraji :--Gugar, gugal. (Porebunder and Guj.) Mukul, Gugal (Marathi) ; Gugal (Hindi).

Arab. : — Mokl-arzak, aflatan.

Pers. : — Boe-jahudan.

Habitat : — Sindh, Rajputana, Bednore, Khandeish, Berars, Mysore, and Bellary.

A stunted shrub or dwarfed tree. " Bark greenish yellow, peeling in long thin, shining paper-like scrolls. Wood soft, white. Pores small. Medullary rays fine, short. The bark yields a £um called Gugal " (Gamble).

Branches thick, spreading, branchlets often spinescent. Trunk knotty. The outer bark coming off in rough flakes, leaving exposed an inner layer which is bright, shining and peels off, as noted above from Gamble's remarks, like thin