Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/26

776 Parts used :— The fruit and root.

A large erect evergreen shrub or small tree. Bark yellowish brown, peeling off in square scales. Wood white ; heartwood irregular greyish or orange yellow, streaked, hard, smooth, close- grained, (Gamble). Branches many dichotomous rigid, spreading; axils and nodes with 2 straight sharp simple or forked thorns sometimes 1-2 in. long. Leaves subsessile, 1½— 3 by 1 — 1½ in., oblong-oval or oblong-lanceolate, rather thinly coriaceous, glabrous, base rounded or retuse, apex obtuse, rarely mucronate. Flowers fragrant white or pale rose-coloured in threes, shortly stalked in cluster at end ef short axillary and terminal peduncles ; bracts small, linear, pubescent. Calyx-segments subulate lanceolate, acute, puberulous and ciliate. Corolla-tube ¾ in., glabrous or puberulous with swollen throat and lobes pubescent ; lobes lanceolate, acute, about half as long as the tube, spreading. Ovary glabrous, cells 4-ovuled. Fruit a drupe ½ — 1 in. long, boardly ovoid, bluntly pointed, shinking, blackish or reddish purple with pulp of the same colour or pinkish white, with white sticky juice on the epicarp. Seeds 2-4 seldom more.

Uses :— The unripe fruit is astringent, and the ripe fruit is cooling, acid and useful in bilious complaints. The root has the reputation of being a bitter stomachic, " Used in Concan, pounded with horse urine, lime-juice and camphor as a remedy for itch." (Dymock.)

In Cuttack the decoction of the leaves is very much used at the commencement of remittent fever. (Surg. -Major P. N. Mukerji.)

The fruit has been reported by several medical officers to possess antiscorbutic properties. (Watt, II. 165.)

" The roots were air-dried, reduced to powder, and digested with 80 per cent., alcohol. The alcohol-free extract was mixed with water, dilute Sulphuric acid added, and agitated with benzole, which separated an oil of the consistence of honey at 75° P., and partly soluble in absolute alcohol with acid reaction. A trace of volatile oil was also present, with an odour similar, to that of Piper Betle leaf oil. During agitation with benzole a mass of dark-yellowish resin separated, which caked. The liquid containing the separated resin was next agigated with ether. The ether extract was not more than a trace, and contained Salicylic acid. The insoluble mass of resin was now separated, and