Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/579

Rh or given as a draught beaten up in milk (Dymock). The bark is a powerful astringent and demulcent. It may be used as a substitute for oak galls. It has been found a valuable remedy in prolapsus ani, as an external applicant in leucorrhœa and has been recommended as a poultice for ulcers, attended with sanious discharge (Ph. Ind.)

Vern. : — Safed kikar, reru, raunj, karir, nimbar, ringa, rinj, rohani, jhind (H.) ; Safed-bâbul (B) ; Sharâb-ki-kikar, hivâr (Duk.) ; Goira (Uriya) ; Safed kikar (Pb.) ; Tumma, reunja, rinja (Gond.); Haribával (Guz.) ; Hivar, pándharya bábhuliche jháda (Mar.) ; Vel-velam, vet-vel, vevay-lam (Tam.) ; (Tella-tuma) (Tel.) ; Bili-jáli, togral naibela, vel-vaila, bilijali topal (Kan.)

Habitat :— Plains of the Punjab, Central and S. India, and Rajputana.

A moderate-sized or large deciduous tree. Bark ⅓in. thick : colour varying with age, grey and smooth when young, dark- brown, almost black and rough when old ; exfoliating irregularly in patches and strips. Wood hard ; sap wood large, heartwood reddish brown, or nearly brick-red, white or grey. Leaves bipinnate, 2-3in. long ; main rachis grey-pubescent, with sessile, cup-shaped, absorption-glands between each pair of pinnae, on the grooved upper-side ; pinnæ 5-15 pair, ¾-1½in. long, nearly sessile ; leaflets 12-25 pair, 1/5in. long, linear, oblong, obtuse, coriaceous, grey, glabrous or pubescent. Flowers pale-yellow or white, in small globose heads, ¼-2/5in. diam., arranged in large, terminal, tomentose panicles ; peduncles shoot with a ring of bracts about the middle. Calyx minute, ^in. long. Corolla twice as long as the Calyx ; lobes subacute. Pods sessile, 4-8 by ¼-3/10in., flat, slightly curved, brown-tomentose, thickened on the sutures, subindehiscent, 10-20-seeded ; seeds compressed, black areolate (Talbot).

Part used : — The bark.

Use : — The bark partakes more or less of the astringent properties of A. arabica (WATT).