visible in the bud, Wight). Fruit 1 by ¾in. ellipsoid. Anderson says that he never found petals in any of the buds he opened.
Medicinal use: — Bouton, in his Medical Plants of Mauritius, says that the resin obtained from this plant acts as a " vulnerary resolutive and anodyne." The oil obtained from the seeds is used as medicine in leprosy and cutaneous affections, and in infusion, mixed with, honey, in scabies and rheumatism (Watt ii. 33.)
134. Mesua ferrea, Linn,h.f.b.i, i. 277 Roxb. 437.
Syn. : — M. speciosa, Chois ; M. coromandeliana, Wight.
Sans. :— Nágakesara.
Vera.: — Nágkesar; naghas ( H. and B.); Nageshvoro, nágeswar (Uriya); Nahor (Assam.) ; Nagchampa; thorlachampa (Bom.); Nágchampa, thorlâ chumpa (Bombay); Nágachampa; nágchámpha (Mar.); Naugal; Mallay naugal; nágap-pu; Nagas- háp-pu (Tarn.,); Naug (Tinnevelley); Nága Kesara; nága kesaramu; gejapushpam (Tel.); Naga sampigi; Nassampige (Kan.); Behetta-cham-pagam; velutta-chenpakam (Mal.).
Habitat: — Mountains of Eastern Bengal, the Eastern Himalaya and the Eastern and Western Peninsulas.
A large evergreen glabrous tree; trunk erect, straight; twigs slender sub-4-angled. " Bark ¼in. thick, reddish-brown, peeling off in flat thin cakes, having a slightly roughened surface. Wood somewhat resembling that of Calophyllum, but much harder and heavier. Heart-wood red, dark, extremely hard. Pores moderate-sized, scanty, often filled with yellow resin, singly or grouped, or in oblique strings of varying length. Medullary rays extremely fine, uniform, equidistant, very numerous. Numerous fine wavy lines of dark-coloured tissue, regular and prominent, but of very different lengths (Gamble). The young shoots at first brilliant red, then pink, gradually passing into dark green (Brandis). Leaves coriaceous, 2-6 by 1½ to 1¾ in., drooping linear-lanceolate, base acute or rounded, dark green and shining above, covered more or less with a fine waxy meal beneath; veins very fine, close-set and equally
