Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/430

1180 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.

Use : — The fruit is given as a remedy in amenorrhœa and colic. (Stewart,)

Vern. : — Koditani (Tam.) ; Khomanig (Nilgiri) ; Nára Kiyaood (Ind. Bazars).

Habitat.:- Sikkim Himalaya, Assam ; Khasia Mts. ; Deccan Peninsula ; on the Ghats from S. Canara to Travancore.

An evergreen, lofty or small tree, 30-40ft. Branchlets slender, glabrous. Leaves entire or serrulate at the tip, coriaceous, penni-nerved ; secondary nerves 10-12 pair, impressed on the upper, and very prominent on the pair underside, 3-7in. Flowers dioecious. Male cymes shortly peduncled, branches short, many-fid. Male flowers rarely glabrous ; sepals 5, broad, obtuse, imbricate ; stamens 5, erect in bud ; pistillode woolly. Female flowers : — Sepals narrow, acute; ovary sessile ; style central ; arms 2, filiform, ovate, pendulous. Drupe usually 2-keeled, about as long as the pedicel, ½-¾in. long ; endocarp hard ; embryo contorted.

Uses: — Thunberg says: — "The tree is called by the Dutch Strunthont, and by the Cingalese Urenne, on account of its disgusting odour, which resides especially in the thick stem and the larger branches. The smell of it so perfectly resembles that of human ordure, that one cannot perceive the smallest difference between them. When the tree is rasped, and the raspings are sprinkled with water, the stench is quite intolerable. It is nevertheless taken internally by the Cingalese as an efficacious remedy. When scraped fine and mixed with lemon juice, it is taken internally, as a purifier of the blood in itch and other cutaneous eruptions, the body being at the same time anointed with it externally." (Travels, Vol IV. p. 234).

Habitat :— Cultivated in N.W. Himalaya.

A perennial, twining, scabrid herb. Rootstock stout branched ; stem tall, scabrid or prickly, with reversed bristles.