Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/356

male flower or with a slender style and small stigma. Stamens 9-13, filaments hairy.

Uses : — Ainslie writes : " The bark is mildly astringent, and has a considerable degree of balsamic sweetness." " It is used by the hill people in the cure of diarrhœa." Stewart writes : — " The bark with that of Tetranthera Roxburghii, Nees (Litsæa sebifera, Pers , var. proper) is officinal, being considered stimulant, and after being bruised, applied, fresh or dry, to contusions, and sometimes mixed with milk and made into a plaster." Campbell confirms the above, writing : " The powdered bark is applied to the body for pains arising from blows or bruises, or from hard work ; it is also applied to fractures in animals." The seeds yield an oil which is used medicinally. The medicinal properties above enumerated are very similar to those of the better-known, and more largely employed, L sebifera, Pers., the venacular names for which also strongly resemble —and, indeed, in certain dialects are identical with— those of this species.

Vern. — Pisi (Mar.).

Habitat. — The Concan and Canara, on the Ghats and Mahableshwar Hills.

A large tree, glabrous, except the brown velvety inflorescence, and very minute hairs occasionally on underside of leaves; branches stout. Bark smooth, greyish-brown. Wood yellowish-grey, moderately hard. Leaves l-2in. broad, l-2in., often of a purplish or brown glaucous hue beneath, greenish above with impressed nerves, coriaceous, elliptic, oblong or oblanceolate, alternate, rarely ovoid, acute or acuminate, very finely, but distinctly, reticulate and sometimes puberulous beneath, with 10-13 pairs of strong nerves ; petiole ⅓-½in. Female umbels shortly pedicelled ; flowering nearly ½in. diam., 6-8-fid, in stout sub -erect racemes, l-3in. long. Male heads ¼-½in. diam. before opening. Perianth grey-silky. Perianth-tube oblong, turbinate in flower. Stamens (of female) reduced to 2 glands and a ligule. Fruiting umbels sometimes solitary or corymbose.