Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/618

538 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. soft, close-grained, reddish-brown. Leaves 2-4 by l-2in., elliptic-oblong, narrowed into petiole, l-2in. long, quite entire, dark-green above, reddish-brown beneath, glabrous. Peduncles about l½in., erect, twice-branched, dichotomously in 'cymes. Flowers white. Calyx surrounded at base by bracteoles, connate into a cup, lobes 5 or 6, linear, ½-2/3in. long. Petals bifid, the lobes divided into numerous capillary segments. Stamens numerous, anthers small, filaments slender. Ovary half-inferior, prolonged beyond the calyx into a fleshy cone, one-celled. Ovules six, style slender, stigma 3-lobed. Fruit lin., conicovoid, girt at the base by the reflexed calyx- lobes,

Use : — The bark, mixed with dried ginger or long pepper and rose-water, is said to be a cure for diabetes (Rheede).

 

Sans. :— Ingudi.

Vern. : — Jangli-bâdâm (H. and Bomb.) ; Nattoo-vadamcottay (Tam.) ; Vadam (Tel.) ; Adamarram (Mal.) ; Taru (Kan.) ; Bâdâm (B.) ; Bengali-bâdâm, jangli-bâdâma, hâtbâdâm (Mar.)

Habitat : — Largely planted in all India, wild in the lowlands of Malaya and perhaps of the Transgangetic Peninsula.

A tall, deciduous tree. Branches horizontally- whorled. Stem often buttressed. Attains 80ft. Wood red, with lighter coloured sapwood, hard. Leaves beautifully green, turning red before falling ; clustered at the end of branchlets, glabrous ; petiole and midrib more or less hairy, obovate from a narrow cordate base, 6-10in. long, petiole short, stout and channelled. Flowers white, in slender axillary spikes, shorter than the leaf. Male flowers at the top, hermaphrodites below. Drupe glabrous, ellipsoid, somewhat compressed, keeled all round, 2in. long, pericarp fibrous and fleshy, endocarp hard, oil expressed 