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INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.


Habitat : — Himalayas to Ceylon and Ava, Sutlej Valley. Basantpur, Sabatbu, Western Peninsula.

A straggling, woody, thorny, stout climber. Branches finely downy, with small yellow prickles. Bark yellowish white, corky, with corky excrescences bearing strong thorns.' Wood light-brown, moderately hard, with masses of reddish-brown harder wood near centre (Gamble). Leaves 2-pinnate, 10- 18in Leaflets 10-24, opposite nearly sessile, oblong, ½-lin., obtuse; Trimen from Ceylon notes 20-24 leaflets (10-12 pair) ; ⅜in., sessile, closely placed, over-lapping, oblong, very obtuse, pubescent on both sides, thin. Flowers large, bright, chrome-yellow ; filaments crimson, 1¼in.; pedicel l-l¼in., stout, hairy, ascending. Racemes terminal, large, 6-12in. long, erect. Bracte long, lanceolate, acuminate, caducous. Calyx finely, but densely, pubescent. Segments very obtuse, petals shortly clawed, reflexed. Stamens much exserted. Filaments woolly for more than lower half. Ovary sessile, style glabrous ; stigma small. Pod glabrous, cuspidate, nearly flat, obliquely oblong, 2-3 by lin., tipped with the persistent style base. Seeds 4-8, mottled (Collet) ; 6-8. oblong, ⅝in., greenish, mottled (Trimen) ; compressed.

Use : — In Chamba, the bruised leaves are applied to burns. (Stewart, p. 60).

415. C. digyna, Rottl. h.f.b.l, ii. 256.

Syn. : — C. oleosperma, Roxb. 356.

Vern. : — Vákeri-mul (H. and Bomb.;; Umul-koochi (B.) ; Nooni-glika (Tel.) ; Vâkeri-che-bhâte (Bomb.).

Habitat : — Eastern and Western Peninsula, Assam, Bengal, Chittagong, Burma, upper and lower ; Sambalpur (C. P.), Ceylon. Eastern Himalaya.

A large, scandent, woody shrub, sparingly prickly. Branches glabrous, purple, with hooked brown prickles, which latter are scattered and uniform. Young parts rufous-pubescent. Leaves narrow, main rachis 6-8in., with 9-12 pair of pinnæ, with rachis l½~2in. pubescent. Leaflets 20-24 (10-12 pair), ⅜ in., sessile, closely placed, overlapping, oblong, very obtuse, pubescent on both sides, thin, dark-green, membranous. Flowers ½in., yellow; pedicel lin., horizontally divaricate,