Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/433

N. 0. URTICACEÆ. 1183

Syn.: — Trophis aspera, Retz., Roxb. 714.

Sans. : — Sákhotaka.

Vern.: — Siorá, karchanna, rusa, daheya (H.) ; Sheora, (B.); Hara saijung (Kol.) ; Sahra (Santal) ; Sahuda (Uriya) ; Nugnai (Magh) ; Karasni (Gond.) ; Jindi, dahya (Pb.) ; Karvati, karera, karaoli, karchanua, rusa (Bomb.) ; Prayám, palpirai (Tam.) ; Bariniki, bari venka, barranki, pakki (Tel.) ; Mitli, punje (Kan.).

Habitat : — Drier parts of India, from Rohilkhund, eastward and southward to Travancore, etc.

A small, evergreen, rigid, shrub or scraggy, gnarled tree, attaining 20ft. in height. Bark ⅓in. thick, soft, light-grey, irregularly ribbed. Wood white, moderately hard, no heart-wood, no annual rings. All parts full of milky juice. Branchlets many, tomentose or pubescent. Leaves elliptic or obovate, penni-nerved, irregularly dentate, rough on both sides, with minute, raised, round dots, blade 2-4in., petiole very short, about 1/12in. long, stipules obliquely lanceolate. Flowers dioecious. Male in globose heads ; perianth campanulate, deeply 4-fid. pubescent outside ; sepals 4, imbricate. Stamens 4, long, inflexed in bud. Females solitary, on axillary, usually fascicled peduncles, ½in. long, perianth yellow, of 4 decussate ; closely imbricate sepals. Ovary straight, retuse ; styles 2, filiform, connate at base. Ovule pendulous. Fruit a yellow, 1-seeded, pisiform berry, enclosed in enlarged, fleshy sepals. Seed globose ; testa membranous ; albumen 0; embryo globose ; one cotyledon, very large, fleshy, enclosing the other, which is very small, and the upcurved radicle.

Uses : — The milky juice has astringent and antiseptic qualities, and is applied to sore heels and chapped hands. The bark in decoction is given in fevers, dysentery and diarrhœa. The roots are used as an application to unhealthy ulcers and sinuses. It is said to be an antidote to snake poison.

Syn.: — M. alba, Var. Indica. Roxb. 658.

Sans. : — Shálmali, tula, tuda.