Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/51

Rh A large, erect, stout, glabrous evergreen shrub, containing a cream-coloured sticky resinous juice. Root crooked. Stem 6-8ft. Woody, pithy in the centre. Bark thick, corky, soft, with a grey surface externally ; in young branches green. Leaves ex-stipulate, in whorls, rarely opposite or scattered, narrow linear-lanceolate ; 4-6in. long, thickly coriaceous, acuminate, entire, revolute, midrib very stout, main lateral nerves numerous, slender, horizontal, parallel, very close. Petiole very short. Flowers hermaphrodite, showy, sweet-scented, single or double, variously coloured, 1½in. diam., salver-shaped. Cymes racemose. Peduncles terminal, long angular ; pedicels short; bracts, deciduous, coloured. Calyx inferior, 5-partite, tubular, persistent, slightly acerescent. Segments subulate, lanceolate, erect ; base of the Calyx-tube glandular within. Corolla 5-lobed, twisted, hypogynous, gamopetalous, regular, deciduous. Corona of each petal 3-fid, laciniate. Stamens 5, alternate with the lobes of the Corolla, included ; filaments attached to the tube the whole way down. Anthers sagittate, introrse, united to the stigma, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Connective, feathery more than twice the length of the anthers. The feathery processes are spirally twisted into a bundle projecting beyond the Corolla-tube. Pollen globose. Ovary superior, of two carpels, separable in fruit. Style single, uniting the ovaries. Stigma hour-glass or dumb-bell- shaped. Fruit cylindric, capsules in pair, with deep linear striations, slightly twisted, 6-9in. long. Seeds numerous, compressed, exalbuminous, with a tuft of fine, shining, white, and greyish silky hairs ; fusiform, slightly rugose.

Uses : — " Roots used in skin diseases and inflammatory affections. It has several synonyms in Sanskrit, signifying horse-killer, seems to be used for destroying horses. The root, beaten into a paste with water, recommended to be applied to chancres and ulcers on the penis (Sarangdhara). Fresh juice of the young leaves poured into the eyes in ophthalmia with copious lachrymation (Chakradatta)." (U. C. Dutt's M. M., p. 191).

All parts of the plant, especially the root, are recognized by the natives as poisonous, and, as such, are used for criminal and suicidal purposes ; yet we find, in the Taleef Shereef (p, 129),