many, on short pedicels and arranged in large terminal much-branched tomentose cymose panicles 1-3 ft. long ; bracts at the forks lanceolate, those beneath the calyx narrower. Calyx (in flower) ⅛ in. long, broadly campanulate, stellately tomentose ; lobes 1/20 in. long, snbequal, spreading ; the whole calyx ultimately enlarging to 1 in. or more and forming a membranous bladder-like covering to the firuit. Corolla white, glabrous,
limb ¼ in across ; lobes subequal, seading. Fruit subglobose, ½ in. in diam., somewhat 4-lobed ; pericarp soft, densely clothed with felted stellate hairs.
Uses : — A plaster of the powdered wood is recommended in hot headaches and for the dispersion of inflammatory swellings ; when taken internally it is said to be beneficial in dyspepsia, with burning of stomach. It also acts as a vermifuge. The ashes of the wood are applied to swollen eyelids and are said to strengthen the sight. The bark is an astringent, and the oil of the nuts promotes the growth of hair and removes itchiness of the skin. The flowers, according to Endlicher, are diuretic, and Gibson states that the seeds possess similar properties (Dymock).
The wood rubbed down with water into a paste allays the pain and inflammation caused by handling the Burmese black varnish Thitsi (Melanorrhoea usitatissima). It also deserves to be tried as a local application to inflammations arising from the action of the Marking Nut (Ph. Ind.). The oil is extracted from the wood in Burma, and is used medicinally as a substitute for linseed oil and as varnish (Mukerji.) The tar is used in the Konkan as an application to prevent maggots breeding in sores on draught cattle (Dymock).
At a meeting of the Nilgri Natural History Society in 1887, Mr. Larson showed a specimen of a whitish mineral substance found in a teak tree growing in the Government Plantation at jVilambnr. This peculiar secretion is not altogether unknown to officers in the Forest Department, and its composition has on more than one occasion been investigated by chemists.
The late R. Romanis (Jn. Chem. Soc, 3-11-87) found that alcohol extracts a soft resin from teak wood, but no oil or varnish. On distilling the resin he obtaind a crystalline substance which he also found to be present in considerable quantity in the tar resulting from the destructive distillation of teak. The analyses which he has made of the crystals point to the empirical formula C9H10O ; on oxidation with nitric acid they yield what appears to be a quinone of the formula C13H16O2.
