Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/619

Rh from the seeds. The seeds are eaten, and so is the luscious and delicious sweet acid pericarp, greedily by children and even grown up persons.

Uses: — The kernels yield upwards of 50 per cent, of a pure bland oil, which may be substituted for almond oil. Kept for a long time, it deposits a large quantity of stearine. The bark is said to be astringent (Ph. Ind.).

The juice of the young leaves is employed in Southern India to prepare an ointment for scabies, leprosy, and other cutaneous diseases, and is also believed to be useful internally for headache and colic (Lisboa).

The seeds yield 63*43 p. c. of oil, which in odour, taste and color closely resemble true almond oil. The oil does not readily become rancid, but becomes thick on standing, and yields an abundant deposit of stearine.— J. Ch. I. for 31st August, 1910, page 1020.

Grimme obtained the following constants : Specific gravity at 15°, 0.9195 ; solidifying point, + 7° ; Dn at 20°, 1.4682 ; acid value, 4.1 ; saponification value, 185.7 ; iodine value, 77. Insoluble acids and unsaponifiable, 93.95 ; unsaponifiable, 1.87. Fatty acids : Melting point, 48.49° ; neutralization value, 198*6 ; iodine value, 73*5 ; mean molecular weight, 282.8.

Sans. : — Vibhitaki,

Vern : — Baherâ, bhairah (H.) ; Bohera (B.) ; Behada (Bomb.) ; Tanrik-kay, Tani, Kattu elupay (Tam.) ; Tani, tandi, toandi (Tel.).

Habitat : — Throughout India, common in the plains and lower hills.

A very large tree, with rusty pubescence on young branchlets and calyx ; attains a height of 60-100ft. ; trunk tall, erect, regularly shaped ; branches spreading, forming a coppery-tinted, bright, broad-massive crown when young, bright-green when old. Youngest off-shoots beautifully crimson. Bark ½in. thick, dark or bluish grey, uneven and tessellated by broad longitudinal furrows, crossed by short, narrow, transverse wrinkles, the old bark exfoliating in dry corky scabs. Wood light grey or yellowish, open and coarse-grained, easily Worked, but not