Indian Medicinal Plants/Natural Order Santalaceæ

Sans. : — Chandana, srikhanda.

Vern : — Chandan, sufed-chandan (Hind.) ; Chandan (Beng.) Sandal (Dec.) ; Shandanak-kattai, Chaudanamaren (Tam.) ; Gandhapu-chekka (Tel.) ; Chandana mutti (Mal.); Srigandha-damara, Gandhakâ-chekke (Kan.) ; Chandan Nasaphiyn, sandakú (Burm.).

Habitat :— Deccan Peninsula ; from near Poona on the west and Midnapoor on the east, southwards, on dry hills, ascending to 3,000 ft., cultivated elsewhere.

A small, evergreen, glabrous tree. Bark dark-grey, nearly black, rough with short vertical cracks, inner bark red. Wood hard, very close-grained and oily ; sap wood white, scentless ; heartwood yellowish-brown, strongly scented. Branches slender, drooping. Leaves opposite, ovate or ovate-lanceolate ; blade 1½-2½in ; petiole ½in. Flowers brownish-purple, in axillary or terminal panicled cymes. Perianth campanulate ; limb of 4 valvate triangular segments. Stamens 4, exserted, alternating with 4 rounded, obtuse scales, which may be regarded either as petals or as lobes of the disk. Drupe globose, ½in. diam., black ; endocarp hard.

Uses : — Sandal-wood is described in Hindu medical works "as bitter, cooling, astringent and useful in biliousness, vomiting, fever, thirst and heat of the body. An emulsion of the wood is used as a cooling application to the skin in erysipelas, prurigo and sudamina." (Hindu Materia Medica.) The wood, ground up with water into a paste, is commonly applied to local inflammations, to the temples in fevers, and to skin diseases to allay heat and pruritus. It also acts as a diaphoretic. A yellow volatile oil is distilled from the wood, which has been reported ​ as a remedy for gonorrhœa. (Pharm, Ind.) It has of late been prescribed as a substitute for copaiba in modern European medicine. ( Pharmacographia.) The author of Makhzan-ul- Adwiya describes the wood as cold and dry, cardiac, tonic, astringent, alexipharmic, anti-aphrodisiac, a resolvent of inflammatory swellings, &c. He recommends an emulsion in bilious fever on account of its cooling and protective influence over the heart, brain, stomach, etc. As an external application a paste made with rose-water and camphor, or with sarcocolla and white of egg, may be applied to relieve headache or to any kind of inflammatory swelling or skin affection. (Dymock)

In cases of morbid thirst the powder of the wood is recommended to be taken in cocoanut water. A bolus of ground sandal checks hæmoptysis in its mild form, when taken twice a day for two or three days.

The seeds contain an oil which is used in skin diseases. The seeds are also eaten. (B. D. Basu.)

The wood yields an essential oil the amount of which, on the average, varies from 3 to 6 per cent. It has been observed that the wood growing on hard and rocky soil is richer in oil than those growing on comparatively fertile soil. (Puran Singh).

The constants of the oil made by mixing the products obtained in the distillations are as follows :

Vern.: — Bakardharra, bakarja (Kumaon) ; Popli (Belgaum) ; Jhuri (Nepal).

Habitat: — Outer Himalaya, Sub-Himalaya-Tract from the Sutlej to Bhutan. Central Provinces, West Coast from the Konkan south-ward to the top of the Ghats, also in the Hill ranges of South India, Shan Hills, Burma ; Ceylon.

An evergreen shrub or tree, twiggy, as a rule glabrous. Bark dark, greyish-brown, rough, with shallow, vertical fissures. Wood red, hard, close-grained (Gamble). Branches numerous, stiff, virgate. Branchlets 3-sided, with prominent, sharp angles. ​Leaves rather crowded, coriaceous, ¾-1½in., elliptic or obovate, or lanceolate, acute at base, obtuse, but sharply apiculate, (mucronate), entire, glabrous, nearly sessile. Flowers pale-green, minute, 3 sometimes 4-merous. Solitary, sometimes 2-3 together, axillary, on long, slender peduncles. Males 1/6in. across, in axillary pedunculate, 5-10fid. clusters ; perianth-lobes triangular ; stamens opposite the lobes ; disk fleshy, 3-lobed ; the lobes alternating with stamens; bisexual. Perianth superior, obconical ; Drupe yellow, ¼-⅓in. diam. Seed one (Brandis), ovoid, truncate, yellowish- white, says Trimen.

Use :— The infusion of the Leaves has powerful emetic qualities (Watt).

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