Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/588

508 odd one near the base. ½-3/5 by 1/10-¼in. linear, oblique at the base, quite rounded at the tips, membranous, pale green above, glaucous beneath ; midrib somewhat diagonal. Panicles 3-4ft. long, interrupted with leaves at the base of the ramifications; peduncles l-l½in. long, slender, downy, in fascicles of 2-4, lower in the axils of the leaves, upper bracteate ; bracts 1/10-¼in. long, obliquly ovate-cordate, deciduous. Heads 2/5-½in, diam. 55-60- flowered, brick-red in bud. Flowers 1/5in. long. Calyx deep crimson, about 1/10in. long, tubular, deeply 5-toothed ; teeth subacute. Petals acute, white with a reddish median line, slightly exserted ; stamens numerous, much exserted, at first white, withering yellow ; filaments very slender. Pod 3-4 by 7/10-1in., straight, thick, fleshy ; 6-10-seeded, slightly idented between the seeds. Sutures broad-

Use : — The pod is acid, bitter, and has a singular pungency ; its qualities are allowed to be deobstruent and detergent and expectorant ; it is commonly ordered in cases of jaundice and other biliary derangements, and is, besides, used by the Indians like soap -nut for washing the head. The small leaves are frequently put into pepper-water to keep the bowels open or work off bile (AINSLIE).

The soft parts of the dried berries contain 5 p. c, and those A. concinna, var, rugata 4 p. c. of the Saponin C20H32O10.-J. Ch. S. 1901 A.I. 648.

Syn. : — Mimosa intsia, Linn Roxb. £24:.

Habitat : — The Tropical Himalayas, Eastern and Western Peninsulas.

Vern. : — Arhai-ka-bêl (Sutlej) ; Kartar (Kumaon) ; Kondoo-janum (Santal.) ; Kundaru (Kol.) ; Harrari (Nepal) ; Payirrik, ugrœmrik (Lepcha) ; Korinta, Korendam (Tel. ) ; Chilâri (Mar.)

A large prickly climber, at first with 5 vertical lines of hooked prickles, afterwards deeply 5- flu ted along those lines, suberect and bushy in early youth. Bark pale grey. Wood white soft, porous. Leaf-rachis 5-7in. long, angled ; with a gland near the base, and or 2-3 below the upper pinnae ; pinnae 6-8 pair, 2-3in. long. Leaflets 8-12 pair 3/10-½in. by 1/6-1/5in., ligulate,