Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/369

application of it. It is probably one of the many cases of the use of a remedy from a belief in the theory of signatures (Revd. A. Campbell.)

Sans. : — Chandana, srikhanda.

Vern : — Chandan, sufed-chandan (Hind.) ; Chandan (Beng.) Sandal (Dec.) ; Shandanak-kattai, Chaudanamaren (Tam.) ; Gandhapu-chekka (Tel.) ; Chandana mutti (Mal.); Srigandha-damara, Gandhakâ-chekke (Kan.) ; Chandan Nasaphiyn, sandakú (Burm.).

Habitat :— Deccan Peninsula ; from near Poona on the west and Midnapoor on the east, southwards, on dry hills, ascending to 3,000 ft., cultivated elsewhere.

A small, evergreen, glabrous tree. Bark dark-grey, nearly black, rough with short vertical cracks, inner bark red. Wood hard, very close-grained and oily ; sap wood white, scentless ; heartwood yellowish-brown, strongly scented. Branches slender, drooping. Leaves opposite, ovate or ovate-lanceolate ; blade 1½-2½in ; petiole ½in. Flowers brownish-purple, in axillary or terminal panicled cymes. Perianth campanulate ; limb of 4 valvate triangular segments. Stamens 4, exserted, alternating with 4 rounded, obtuse scales, which may be regarded either as petals or as lobes of the disk. Drupe globose, ½in. diam., black ; endocarp hard.

Uses : — Sandal-wood is described in Hindu medical works "as bitter, cooling, astringent and useful in biliousness, vomiting, fever, thirst and heat of the body. An emulsion of the wood is used as a cooling application to the skin in erysipelas, prurigo and sudamina." (Hindu Materia Medica.) The wood, ground up with water into a paste, is commonly applied to local inflammations, to the temples in fevers, and to skin diseases to allay heat and pruritus. It also acts as a diaphoretic. A yellow volatile oil is distilled from the wood, which has been reported