Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/17

Rh Habitat : — Cultivated throughout India.

A small, deciduous tree, 30ft., often forming coppice, scabrid pilose. Bark ¼in. thick, light brown, rough. Wood pale- red, of pale yellowish brown, moderately hard, close-grained. A well-known tree, with fragrant flowers, which open at night and drop off in the early morning. Kanjilal says the bark is grey or greenish-white, rough. Branches quadrangular. Leaves opposite, 4¼ by 2½in. or 3in., ovate, acute, coriaceous, covered over with stiff white hairs on the upper surface ; pubescent beneath, margin slightly recurved, entire or with distinct teeth, principal nerves conspicuous beneath. Base rounded or cuneate, petiole ⅓in., not articulated. Flowers sessile, 3-7 together in pedunculate heads, which are arranged in short trichotomous cymes ; bracts elliptical. Calyx-tube 1/5in., campanulate, minutely 4-5-toothed. Corolla-tube ¼-⅓in. long, cylindric, orange-red. Limb white, spreading. Lobes 5-8, 1/5-⅓in. long, emarginate, contorted in bud. Anthers 2, subsessile, inserted near the mouth of the Corolla-tube. Ovary 2-celled ; ovule 1 in each cell, erect. Capsule ⅓-½in. long or ¾in., ⅛-1/6in. thick, orbicular, chastaceous, splitting into 2 one-seeded cells. Seeds exalbuminous, radical, inferior, colyledons flat. Flowers throughout the year, in the Konkan during the rains.

Use : — The leaves, according to Sanskrit writers, are useful in fever and rheumatism. The fresh juice of the leaves is given with honey in chronic fever. A decoction of the leaves, prepared over a gentle fire, is recommended by several writers as a specific for obstinate sciatica (Dutt). According to the author of the Makhzan, six or seven of the young leaves are rubbed up with water and a little fresh ginger, and administered in obstinate fevers of the intermittent type, at the same time a purely vegetable diet is enforced. The powdered seeds are used to cure scurfy affections of the scalp (Dymock).

In the Concan, about 5 grains of the bark are eaten with betelnut and leaf, to promote the expectoration of thick phlegm (Dymock).

It is antibilious and expectorant, and useful in bilious fevers. (K. L. Dey).