about 1/10-1/6in. diam., with a few larger ones, ⅓in. diam. which are white and fleshy ; seeds 3-6, punctate (Kanjilal).
Use :—The juice of the leaves, or the leaves made into a paste with tobacco, are used to destroy worms in sores. (Dymock.)
Chemical composition. — The bark contains 10 per cent, of a tannic acid, giving a violet-black colour with ferric chloride, and the mixture becomes red on the addition of ammonia. An alkaloid is also present, giving a purplish-red colour, afterwards turning to green, with Fröhde's re-agent, and a violet colour with strong sulphuric acid and permanganate of potassium. The alkaloid is soluble in excess of alkalies. The infusion was somewhat frothy, but no sapogenin could be isolated from it after boiling with acid.
1137. Breynia rhamnoides, Muell., Arg. h.f.b.l, v. 330.
Syn. :— Phylianthus rhamnoides, Willd.
Sans. : — Aruni.
Vern. : -Surasaruni (H), Tikkar (Oudh.)
Habitat: — Throughout tropical India, from Oudh eastwards to Upper Assam and southwards to Travancore.
A small tree or bush, quite glabrous, with many long horizontal, bifarious, flexous branches. Bark yellowish-grey or greyish-brown, rough. Wood reddish, hard, close-grained. Twigs angular, glabrous. Leaves numerous, membranous, distichous, spreading on short petioles, 1-1½in., oval, acute at both ends, entire, glabrous, thin, pale beneath ; veins inconspicuous. Stipules minute, subulate. Flowers yellow, very small, on slender, filiform pedicels. Male flowers very small in clusters; female solitary. Male flowers :— Calyx turbinate ; segments short, obtuse, inflexed, nearly closing to mouth. Stamina! column short. Female flowers : — Calyx cup-shaped, segments acute. Ovary much-exserted, oblong, truncate. Styles very short. Fruit small, globose, ⅛in., seated on the scarcely enlarged calyx, smooth, dull-red. Seeds ⅛in., aril O ; testa imperforate except at the very base.
Uses : — According to Ainslie, it was brought to Dr. F. Hamilton while in Behar as a medicine of some note ; the dried leaves are smoked like tobacco, in cases in which the
