Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/418

338 brandies. Young branches puberulous. Leaves serrate, dark green and velvety above, pale and more felted beneath, ½-1in., ovate to orbicular. Cymes under |in. Petals ovate, with convolute margins. Disk 10-lobed. with a pit opposite each lobe. Ovary 2-celled, styles 2, united to above the middle. Fruit ⅜in. diam., globose, woody, black, 2-celled. Much used for fencing and for the sweet subacid fruit as food, especially in famine time.

Use :— In the Punjab, the fruit is used in bilious affections ; and considered by the natives to be cool and astringent (SETWART).

Vern. : — Unnáb (Arab). ; Sinjid-i-jiláni (Pers.) ; Titni-ber, kandiari (H), Sanjit (Pb); Unâb (Bomb).

Habitat : — The Punjab, extending to the Western Frontier from the Punjab Himalaya. Wild and cultivated, extending to Bengal, Kashmir, Baluchistan. The best fruit (Dried) comes from China and Japan.

A large shrub or small tree, armed. Bark rough, with longitudinal furrows, dark grey. Wood pale, yellow-brown. Heartwood dark-brown, even grained. Stewart says this is the handsomest species, and that he has seen it as large as 5-6ft. in girth and 25-30ft. high Gamble). Rigid, spreading boughs and stiff branches, which are often unarmed. The whole plant is quite glabrous. Leaves ¾-2½in. sub-obliquely ovate, obtuse or sub-acute, crenate-serrate ; prickles usually gemmate, the straight one often over 1in. long, stout. Flowers few, fascicled in the axils of the leaves. Petals cucullate. Disk thin, obscurely 5-lobed. Ovary 2-celled. Styles 2, united to the middle. Fruit ½in. diam., globose or oblong, esculent, red and black, shining.

Use. — Mir Muhamraed Husain regards the dried fruits as a suppurative, expectorant, and purifier of the blood. The bark of the tree is used to clean wounds and sores. The gum