Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/396
deciduous. Leaves rather membranous, pinnately distichous, 2-3in., petioled, obliquely ovate, acute, pale beneath ; base usually rounded. Nerves 5-8 pair, arched. Petiole 1/12-⅛in.; stipules toothed. Flowers brownish-red, minute, most densely clustered, 1/16in. diam. ; clusters axillary or in slender racemes from the thick, old branches, shortly pedicelled ; occasionally 2-sexual, sometimes 3-4-merous ; pedicels capillary, ¼-½in. Sepals 1, orbicular ; filaments free. Disk of male, of large glands ; of female, annular crenate. Stamens 4, recurved ; anthers shortly oblong, slits lateral. Ovary ovoid ; styles 3-4, reflexed from the contracted top, 2-partite ; arms subulate, acute. Fruit globose, often crowded. Pericarp fleshy, acid, seed-lobed, generally 6-S grooved. Endocarp 3-4-celled ; parts 1-celled, 1-seeded.
Use : — The fruit is acid and astringent, the root is an active purgative, and the seed is also cathartic.
1136. Flueggia microcarpa, Blume., h.f.b.i., v. 328.
Syn. :— Phyllanthus leucopyrus Koen., Roxb., 679.
Vern. : — Parpo (Goa). Páudharphali, kánte puwan (Bomb). Dalme (H.) ; Rithoul (Dehra Dun).
Habitat: — The Punjab Plains. Deccan Peninsula, from Canara southwards.
A small, deciduous tree or large shrub. Bark smooth, thin, rusty or reddish-brown. Wood red, hard, close-grained. "A graceful little tree of slow growth," says Gamble. Glabrous, unarmed ; branchlets slender, angled and compressed, marked with small, white specks. Branches straight and regularly fluted or angular. Leaves very variable, l-4in. long, elliptic-ovate, obovate or orbicular, membranous, but tough, rather glaucous beneath ; tip rounded, obtuse or acute, rarely acuminate or retuse ; lateral nerves 6-8 pair, very slender; petiole 1/10-⅓in., slender. Flowers diœcious, very small, pedicelled, usually in axillary fascicles. Sepals 5, imbricate. Male flowers: — Stamens 5, alternating with disk-glands, but opposite to the sepals ; pastillode large, 3-fid. Female flowers: — Ovary, ovoid, on an annular disk ; styles 3, 2-fid. Fruit of two sizes, mostly small and dry,