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1178 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.

Habitat : — Behar, Hazaribagh. Deccan Peninsula, from Bombay southwards ; found in the open places and waste ground, common in the Tropics of the Old World generally.

An annual, glabrous herb, with the habit of an annual Euphorbia ; l-2ft. high, with numerous, prostrate or ascending, slender branches from the root. Leaves small, alternate, distant, ½-3in., by ¼-½in., nearly sessile, linear, acute at base, obtuse, apiculate, very minute, serrate, glabrous, often rather glaucous beneath. Stipules ovate, acute, ciliate. Flowers monœcious, yellowish, apetalous. Male very minute in short axillary or leaf-opposed spikes, female solitary at base of the male, or axillary. Male flower : -Calyx minute, 5-lobed, membranous, not covering the stamens in bud ; stamens 1-4, filaments distinct. Pistillode 0. Female flower: — Sepals 3, longer than in male, obovate, acute, lacerate and ciliate, 2- glandular within ; ovary much exserted, 3-celled, with 1 ovule in each cell, styles 3, small, not bifid. Fruit under ¼in., glabrous, smooth, except for the two dorsal rows of spinules, thinly crustaceous, sub-globosely oblong. Seeds oblong, mottled. Endosperm fleshy ; cotyledons broad. (Trimen and J. D. Hooker.)

Uses :— -The juice of the plant in wine is used as an astringent ; a ghrita of the plant is considered to be tonic, and is applied to the head in vertigo. (Pharmacogr. Ind. III. 316.)

Vern. :-- Papri (H.) ; Vavala (Mar.), Aya (Tam.); Navili (Tel.) ; Rasbija (Can.).

Habitat :— Outer lower ranges of the Himalaya, from Jammu to Oudh, ascending to 2,000ft. From Banda and Bihar to Travancore.

A large, spreading deciduous tree. Bark ⅓in. thick, whitish-grey, exfoliating in long irregular flakes, soft, with an offensive smell when fresh, like the leaves and branchlets. Wood light,