Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/410

330 I have also used this oil in some simple and uncomplicated cases of dropsy, and with good and encouraging results.

The seeds are supposed to have the property of stimulating the intellect and sharpening the memory. The oil is used in the courts and colleges by a great many pandits and munshis to increase the intelligence of their pupils.

Sanskrit : — Vaikankat, Vikankat.

Vern. :— (Baluch) — Vingar ; (Hindi) Baikal; (Ajmer) Kakra; (Marathi) Bharuli ; (Kanara Tandraja) ; Sherawane. (Trans-Indus) ; Talkar, kharai (Pb.) ; Baikal, gaja-chinni (C. P.); Mal Kangoni, Zekadi (Bomb. ) ; Danta, babur (Gordi) ; Danti, pedda chintu (Tel.)

J. Indraji : — (Porebunder) Vikaro ; (Guj.) Vikalo ; (Maráthi) Vekar, Vekal ; (Hindi) Kingani.

Habitat : — Throughout the drier parts of Central, South- western and North- Western India, common in the Punjab, Sindh, Rajputana. Central Provinces, Bihar, and the drier districts of the Peninsula. Flower at various times of the year. Afghanistan Malay Archipelago.

A tall armed shrub, spines often bearing leaves and flowers ; under favourable circumstances a small tree. Leaves grey, coriaceous, exceedingly variable in shape and size, obovate, oblanceolate to linear-spathulate, narrowed into the petiole. Flowers small, pale, greenish white. Cymes axillary or fasciculate, on short branchlets, often forming terminal, elongate panicles. Capsule ½in., usually 2-valved. Seeds 1,2, rarely 3.

Use : — The bark ground to a paste, applied with other oils to the head, for destroying pediculi.

Syn. : — E. Roxburghii, W. and A.