Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/808

728 Habitat: — Sea-shores of India, from Sind to Ceylon, and from Burma to Malacca.

A large shruby plant with thin loose bark ; stem and branches stout. Leaves 3-5in., alternate, entire or rarely obscurely crenate, silky or glabrescent, tufted in the axils, petioled, obovate-oblong, obtuse, herbaceous. Flowers white, tinged with purple. Cymes axillary, much shorter than the leaves. Bracts small. Calyx-lobes ⅛-¼in. linear-lanceolate, obtuse and enlarged in fruit. Corolla-tube ¾in., oblique split to the base behind, narrow pubescent ; lobes ¼-⅓in., lanceolate, anthers free. Indusium of the stigma ciliate ; ovary 2-1 celled, with 2 erect ovules. Drupe ⅓-½in., subspherical, very succulent ; endocarp long.

Use : — The juice of the berries is instilled by the Amboyans into the eyes to clear off opacities and take away dimness of vision (Rumplins).

 

Vern. : — Deonal, Bokenal, Dhaval (Mar.).

Habitat: — Malabar; on the Ghauts, from Bombay to Travancore.

Tall herbs ; stems usually much branched upwards, 5-12ft., erect, somewhat pubescent or glabrate ; below an inch and a half or more in diameter, and almost solid ; the upper portion is a hollow tube ending in a crowded head of flower spikes which are about a foot in length. Leaves mostly radical, resemble those of the tobacco ; narrowly obovate-lanceolate, lower often 12 by 2in., upper gradually smaller, subsessile, serrulate herbaceous, glabrous or nearly so above, pilose or glabrous beneath. Inflorescence compound ; racemes dense, more or less pubescent ; peduncles ½-1in. and upwards. Flowers large and white. Calyx-tube glabrous or pubescent ; teeth ½in.; linear, glanddenticulate. Corolla ¾-1¼in., glabrous or pubescent. Anthers glabrous, on the back rarely a little hairy. Capsule ⅓ diam., subglobose, two-celled, each cell containing a fleshy placeuta. 