Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/669

Rh Petiole without glands, 3-4in. Flowers large, yellow, monoecious, all solitary; without bracts. Male flowers: — Peduncle 3-4in. Calyx-tube campanulate, lobes 5, when young often narrow ; leaflike, scarcely serrate. Corolla of 5 petals nearly separate ; stamens 3, inserted near the mouth of the tube, anthers exsert, free, one 1-celled, two 2-celled, cells sigmoid. Female flowers : — peduncle l-2in., Calyx and Corolla as in the male ; ovary oblong, densely hairy ; style thick, with 3 flexuous stigmas ; ovules numerous, horizontal, placentas 3. Fruit green, 1-l½ft., often 2ft. by ½ft., cylindric, fleshy, oblong, pubescent, indehiscent, without ribs, ultimately covered with a white waxy bloom. Seeds many, oblong, compressed, margined, ½ by ⅛in.

Uses : — The fruit possesses alterative and styptic properties, and is popularly known as a valuable antimercurial. It is also said to have cooling properties. It is considered tonic, nutritive and diuretic, and a specific for hæmoptysis and other hæmorrhages from internal organs. The fresh juice from the fruit given internally, while a slice of the fruit is at the same time applied to the temples, is said to be an efficacious cure for internal hæmorrhage. According to the Sanskrit authors, it is useful in insanity, epilepsy, and other nervous diseases ; the fresh juice is given either with sugar or as an adjunct to other medicines for these diseases (U. C. Dutt).

Is used extensively as a preserve by natives.

" The seeds possess anthelmintic properties, and are useful in cases of tænia. The expressed oil of the seeds, in doses of half an ounce, repeated once or twice at an interval of two hours, and followed by an aperient, is said to be equally efficacious. May be used as a substitute for male fern" (Official Correspondence from Bombay Committee regarding the revision of Indian Pharmacopœia.)

" The fresh juice is often used as a vehicle to administer pearl shell for the cure of phthisis in the first stage" (Asst.- Surgn. Sakhâram Arjun, Bombay). " This is so universally believed to be useful in pulmonary consumption that some