Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/538

458 with fine adpressed hairs. Flowers few, in short axillary or terminal racemes. Calyx 1/5-¼in., teeth deltoid, minute. Limb of standard not longer than the Calyx. Stamens 2-3, monadelphous.

Use : — There are three kinds of sandalwood, according to the Sanskrit writers — white, yellow and red. The red variety is considered astringent, tonic, and is used as a cooling external application for inflammation and headache. (Dutt.)

Considered by the Natives a hot remedy, useful in bilious affections and skin diseases, also in fever, boils, and to strengthen the sight. It also acts as a diaphoretic, and is applied to the forehead in headache (Baden Powell).

The wood, rubbed up with water, is advantageously employed as a wash in superficial excoriations of the genital organs (Surgeon-Major Gray). Used also over swelling of eyelids for reducing the swelling, (K. R. K.)

A decoction of the legume is useful as an astringent tonic in chronic dysentery, after separation of the slough (Surgeon- Major Shircore, Watt's Dictionary).

Vern. : — Bija, bijilar, peetshola (H .); Biblâ, huni, asan (Bomb.) ; Kandamiruga-mirattam, vengai (Tam.) ; Gandum rugam-nettura, peddagi, pedei, zegi (Tel.) ; Karin-thagara Mal.)

The gum — Kamarkas (H); Chinâi-gond (Bomb.).

Habitat :— All parts of the Madras Peninsula, extending North to the Rajmahal Hills in Bihar and Central India.

A large, deciduous tree. Bark ⅓in. thick, grey, with long vertical cracks, exfoliating in small pieces of irregular shape and size. Wood very hard, close-grained, giving a red resin ; sapwood small ; heartwood yellowish-brown, with darker streaks. Leaves with soft adpressed hairs while young, dark green, shining. Leaflets 5-7, coriaceous, elliptic-obtuse, emarginate, sometimes shortly acuminate, glabrous when full grown. Secondary nerves 15-20 pair, with intermediate ones joined by prominent reticulate veins. Flowers yellow or white, pedicels much shorter than Calyx, in terminal panicles. Calyx