Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/630

550 branches yellow. Leafless during most of the hot season. Leaves broadly elliptic, pubescent when young, glabrous when full grown, blade 1½— 3½, petiole ¼-¾in. long, secondary nerves 8-14 pairs, tertiary nerves prominent beneath. Flower-heads ¼-⅓in. in diam., in on short peduncles, often in axillary racemes. Ripe fruit almost glabrous, nearly orbicular ; sometimes ⅜ (excluding the beak) by ¼in., including the wings, usually smaller, more or less rusty pubescent when young.

Use : — This tree yields a valuable gum, which is worthy of attention (Dymock).

499. Quisqualis indica, Linn., H. F.B.I., II. 459, Roxb. 379.

Vern. : — Rangūn-ki-bel (H.) ; Vilayati-chambeli (Bomb.) ; Irangūn-malli (Tam.) ; Rangunu-malle-chettu (Tel.).

Habitat : — Cultivated throughout India, wild probably in the Transgangetic Peninsula.

A large, climbing, woody shrub. Bark thin, grey, peeling off in small flakes. Wood, soft, porous. Young shoots pubescent or villous. Leaves elliptic or ovate-oblong, acuminate, those on leafy rambling shoots alternate, those on flowering branches opposite, petioles articulate, the portion below the articulation persistent, being hard and woody, hooking the branches on to the supports. Flowers showy, first white, then red or orange, then varnish- coloured, in different stages on one and the same flower stalk. Bracts leafy, ovate-lanceolate, free part of Calyx filiform, 2-3in. long, hairy within and on the outside. Fruit seldom, never, I should say, met with in the Konkan, lin. long, glossy, with 5 deep furrows between the angles. I collected a half-ripe fruit, nearly half an inch long, in the beautiful Government Gardens of Sydney in 1889, March. It is still in my private Herbarium (K. R. K.).

Use : — In the Moluccas, the seeds are supposed to be anthelmintic. Four or five of the seeds are given with honey, as an electuary for the expulsion of entozoa in children (Ph. Ind.).

In Amboyna, the leaves are given in a compound decoction for flatulent distension of the abdomen. In China, the ripe seeds are roasted, and given in diarrhœa and fever (Rumphius).