Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/537

Rh A large shrub, sometimes scandent. Bark blackish-grey, rough, vertically fissured. Wood brownish-white, in alternate bands of varying width of woody and bast texture and with a dark-red, hard centre (Gamble). "A rigid, wiry, scrambling shrub " says Brandis, " with soft, silvery white wood, armed with stout divaricating branchlets, ending in pungent spines." Talbot thus describes the plant : — " A stiff, erect, glabrous shrub, with horizontal branches, spine-tipped at the ends." Entirely glabrous. Leaves fascicled on the node of branches ; leaflets 7-11, often nearly opposite, ovate-oblong, ¼-½in. long. Flowers yellowish- white, in congested, sessile, axillary panicles; pedicels short. Calyx 1/10in. long, minutely downy, teeth short, obtuse. Corolla twice as long as the Calyx. Stamens 10in., a single sheath, sometimes in 2 separate sheaths of 5 each. Pod lin. long, reniform, coriaceous, flat, 1-seeded, brown, glabrous.

Use: — The roots powdered absorb alcohol, and a spoonful of the powder in a tumblerful of water is- said to be sufficient to destroy, in less than half an hour, the effects of alcohol, even in cases bordering on delirium tremens (Kurz).

Sans. : — Raktachandana.

Vern ; — Ragat-chandan, lâlchandan, undum (H.) ; Rakta- chandan (B.); Shenshandannum, segappo-shandanum (Jam.); Erragandhapuchekka, kuchandanum (Tel.) ; Kempu-gandha (Kan.); Ooruttah chundanum (Mal.); Lâl-chundan (Dec); Raktachandan, ratanjli (Bomb.).

Habitat :— South India, chiefly Cuddapah, North Arcot and the southern portion of the Karnool District.

A smooth tree, attaining 25ft. Bark blackish-brown, deeply cleft, both vertically and horizontally into rectangular plates. Wood extremely hard. Sapwood white, heartwood dark, claret-red to almost black, but always with a red tinge, orange- red when fresh cut, the shavings giving an orange-red colour. Branches obscurely grey-downy. Leaflets 3, rarely 4 or 5, broad-elliptic, obtuse, 1½-3in. long, underside pale and clothed