Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/680

600 yield to solvents about 17 per cent, of yellowish-red oil having an indine value of 129.3, and 92.2 per cent, of fatty acids melting at 29°. Grimaldi and Prussia, in 1909, found the oil of colocynth seeds to have the specific gravity of 0.9289, solidifying point 14°, and iodine value 120.27. Power and Moore (1910) separated from the oil a phytosterol, melting between 158° and 160° C. The oil has a bitter taste if made from tbe undecorticated seeds (Hooper).

Syn. — Cucurbita citrullus, Linn. Roxb. 700.

Vern.--Tarbûz (H.) ; Tarmuj (B.); Tarbuj, Kâlingad or Kalingan (Bomb.) ; Pitcha-pullam (Tam.).

Habitat. — Cultivated throughout India.

A climbing or trailing, hispid annual. Stems branching, angular ; tendrils 2-fid, firm ; pubescent. Petioles about 2in., nearly round, villous ; blade of leaf 3-5in. long by 2-3in. broad, triangular-ovate, cordate, deeply trifid ; segments pinnatifid, terminal one larger ; lobes undulate or lobulate, pale-green above, ashy beneath. Flowers monæcious, axillary, solitary, rather large. Male flowers : — peduncle falling short of the petiole ; Calyx campanulate, lobes narrowly lanceolate, equalling the tube ; Corolla about an inch in diam., greenish outside, and villous ; segments ovate, oblong, obtuse, 5-nerved. Stamens 3, anthers free. Female flowers : — Calyx-tube, fused with the ovary, contracted above, lobes and Corolla as in the male ; ovary ovoid ; densely villous ; style short, stigmas 3. Fruit large, ovoid, pale or dark-green or mottled, sometimes covered with a glaucous waxy bloom ; flesh white, yellowish or red, at times deeply pink. Seeds compressed, and usually margined, varying much in shape and colour. Some of the varieties grown in Alibag in the Kolaba District, have a glaneous green globose fruit. (K. R.K.)

The wild plant may be either bitter or sweet without any observable structural differences. The bitter form comes very close to C. colocynthis, when that species is cultivated (Watt).

Uses. — The seeds are used as a cooling medicine. In Bombay, they are considered cooling, diuretic and strengthening.

The juice is used with cumin and sugar as a cooling drink (Dymock). The Vytians prescribe the juice of the fruit to quench thirst, and also an antiseptic in typhus fever (Ainslie).