Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/419

N. 0. EUPHORBIACEÆ. 1169

H₃₀O₉. It contains hydroxyl groups. By fusion with alkalis at 220-240° it yields acetic and benzoic acids together with phloroglucinol. (The Agricultural Ledger, 1905. No. 4. pp. 61-62.)

The ash of Kamala contains a considerable proportion of manganese.

When extracted with ether, Kamala yields a dark, brownish, resinous product from which six distinct substances can be isolated. Five of these, namely, rottlerin, isorottlerin, a wax, and two resins, one of high and the other of low melting point, form the principal constituents, but there is also present a trace of a yellow, crystalline colouring matter.

Kamala contains also a minute amount of an essential oil or similar substances, giving to it when gently warmed a peculiar odour, but from which it can be readily freed by treatment with steam.

Kamala contains, moreover, a small quantity of a sugar, which is extracted from it by water.

Seeds. — The seeds, of which three are contained in each capsule, are black or dark grey, rounded, and slightly flattened on one side. They are about the size of black pepper. Their resemblance to the fruits of Embelia Ribes has been observed in the Panjab where the confusion of the names — baobrang for Mallotus and bebrang for Embelia — has existed. In Katha, Burma, the seeds ground to a paste are applied to wounds and dah cuts.

Greshofl, in 1898, discovered in the seeds a bitter glucoside soluble in water and alcohol, that may be shaken out of a water extract by chloroform.

The seeds analysed in the Indian Museum afforded :— Moisture, 8.75 ; fat 5.85 ; albuminoids, 16.8l ; carbohydrates, 47.49 ; fibre, 17.35 ; ash, 3.75. They are, therefore, not oil-yielding seeds as has been reported.

Vern. :— Chandkal (Kanara) ; Chándwar, chandâdâ (Mar.); Vattekanni (Tam.) ; Boddichettu (Tel.) ; Chentha-kanni (Mysore).

Habitat:— The Deccan Peninsula; in the Circars and on the ghats, from the Concan to Travancore.

A small or middle-sized resinous tree. Wood reddish brown or soft. Branchlets stout, glaucous, youngest shoots stellateto-mentose. Leaves deltoid-or rhombic-ovate or orbicular, broadly peltate, cuspidate, palmati-nerved, entire or minutely toothed ; 5-8m. diam., coriaceous or thin, glabrous above, except the pubescent nerves, and eglandular at the rounded base, beneath finely pubescent or glabrate and gland-dotted with 6-8 pairs of