Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/20

770 brown or olive-brown to nearly black, clouded. Leaves 2-4in. long, oblong, lanceolate, cuspidate, entire, very coriaceous, dark-green and shining above, thickly coated with a dense film of minute red scales ; margins slightly recurved, midrib prominent, petiole about 1/5in. Flowers bisexual, whitish, in axillary trichotomous cymes, l-2in. long. Calyx nearly truncate or with 4 short teeth. Corolla deeply divided. Lobes 1/10in. elliptic, obtuse or acute, with a ridge along the middle, induplicate-valvate in bud. Anthers oval, dehiscing alternately. Style short, stigma bifid. Drupe ½-⅓in. long, ovoid, black when ripe, supported by the remains of the Calyx. Endocarp bony ; pulp scanty, oily.

Uses: — An oil is extracted from the fruit which is used medicinally as a rubefacient. Leaves and bark are bitter and astringent, used as an antiperiodic in fever and debility, (Brandis),

The Commissioner of Kohat has sent to the Indian Museum samples of the oil and fruit which is said to ripen in October and November. The fruits contained very little pulp and the oil appeared to be yielded by the speeds, the kernels of which contained 318 per cent. This may explain the small yield of oil recorded in pressing experiments made since 1851. It has been suggested that by grafting the European species and by improved method of extraction the yield might be improved. The oil of this wild olive has a greenish-yellow colour, and its characters resemble those of European olive oil. Crossley and Le Sueur in 1897 obtained the following constants : Specific gravity, 0.920 ; acid value, 5.0 ; saponification value, 190.9 ; iodine value, 93.6 ; Reichert-Meissl value, .6 ; insoluble fatty acids, 95.14 per cent. Like olive oil it was non-siccative, but the iodine value of this sample was abnormally high. A recent sample of this oil from Koliat had a more normal iodine value of 86.1. (Hooper).

Vern. :— Gúlili, raban, sira, pbalsb (Pb.) ; Gair, galdu, garur (Kumaon).

Habitat : — Fairly common along the outer Himalaya tracts, N.-W. Himalaya, from Kashmir to Nepal. Mountains of South India.

A moderate-sized tree, 20-60ft., glabrous or nearly so. Bark ⅓in. thick, grey, uneven, exfoliating in brittle scales. Branches lenticillate. Leaves rhomboid-lanceolate 4-2in., entire, ovate- lanceolate, long acuminate entire, margins slightly undulate;