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1194 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.

long, secondary nerves 8-10 pair, the lowest pair from the base. Fruit sessile or shortly peduncled, ¼-⅛in. diam., basal bracts minute.

Uses :— The bark of this, along with the barks of other four species of Ficus and of Melia azadirachta, pass by the name of Panchavalkala (or the five barks) ; they are used in combination. A decoction is much employed as a gargle in salivation, as a wash for ulcers, and as an injection in leucorrhœa. (Watt.)

Sans. : — Trayamáná.

Vern. :— Gaori-shiora, balábahulá, balálálá ghoti-suara, bhui-dúmúr, ballam dúmúr (B.) ; Pakhur (H.) ; Datri (Mar) ; Buroni (Tel.) ; Valli-teragam (Mal.).

Habitat :~ Throughout the hotter parts of India, near water, from the Gangetic Plain eastwards and southwards to Perak and Ceylon.

A shrub sometimes creeping on the ground or over rocks, with short, pubescent stem and branches, the leaves very variable, scabrid. Leaves petiolate, memberanous ; general outline usually more or less ovate-elliptic, but varying from elongate- lanceolate to ovate or ovate-round, often irregularly 3 to many-lobed, with the apex more or Jess acuminate, the edges irregularly and coarsely dentate or dentate-repand ; the base blunt, rounded, or cordate, 3-to-5 nerved ; both surfaces scabrous, and covered with short, stiff hairs ; lateral nerves from 4-8 pair according to the length of the leaf (in the much-lobed leaves the nervation is palmate) ; length of blade 2 to 4in., petioles varying from 5 to 2-5in.; stipules 2 to each leaf scarious, ovate, glabrous or nearly so, 3 to 4in. long. Receptacles on peduncles of varying length, solitary, axillary, spherial to elongated-pyriform, always with a more or less prominent mammillate umbilicus which is but imperfectly closed by bracts, more or less hispid, scabrid, and sometimes verrucose when young ; when ripe nearly smooth, dark-orange, 4 to lin. long ; basal bracts minute, triangular, glabrous (in the much elongated forms appearing