Morphological information

An evergreen or subdecidous shrub occasionally a small tree up to 6 m high and stem 23 cm diameters. Young shoots glabrous. Branches armed with scattered pale lenticels. Bark pale brown, rather deeply furrowed, corky. Blaze pale yellowish brown with or without paler streaks, soft, the whole rapidly darkening on exposure. Leaves imparipinnate. 10-23 cm long, the rachis with foliaceous green wing upto 4mm broad, often is bearing straight pink prickles upto 15 mm long. Leaflets 5-11, lanceolate, more or less serrate and each serrature with a pellucid gland, sparsely pellucid punctuate, acute or acuminate, sessile, glabrous, dark glossy green above, pale beneath. Flowers polygamous, yellow, in dense puberscent lateral panicles. Fruit of 1-3 carpels. Carpels 4mm diameter, globose, red, glabrous. Seed solitary, 2.5 mm diameter, globose, shinning, black.

Flowering                               : In late rains

Fruiting                                  : in cold weather

History                                   :

Parts                                      : Bark, fruit and seed.

Status                                     : Vulnerable.

Phytochemistry

Linalool, limonene, methyl cinnamate and cineole isolated from fruits (J.NPA 1979, 12, 25; chem.. Abstr. 1980, 93,53752 y); linalool (50.72-64.9%) present in fruit oil (J.NPA 1979, 7, 97; chem. Abstr. 1981, 94, 71198 x) cis-9-hexadecenoic acid (15.4%) identified in oil (J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc. 1980, 57, 224; Chem Abstr. 1980, 93, 146312 v); arginine, glycine, histidine, thronine, tyrosine, aspartic acid and glutamic acid isolated from fruits (Bull. Pure Appl. Sci. 1982, 1, 11; Chem.Abstr. 1984, 101, 16749 w); hydrocarbon, acid and phenoil content of oils from plants collected in summer and winter is 24.3, 4.5 and 0.90 and 17.2, 4.14 and 0.18% respectively; content of 1,8-cineole (13.4 and 34.7), limonene (12.4 and 7.2 and citronellal (4. and 11.4%) in oils from summer and winter plants respectively (Essenze Deriv. Agrum. 1983, 53, 26; Chem. Abtr. 1984, 101, 177248 s).

Ayurvedic

The fruit is sweetish, bitter, hot, tasty and digestive; appetizer; anthelmintic; removes “Kapha and Vata”, pain, tumours, abdominal troubles of the spleen, difficult micturition.

Unani

The seeds used as a tonic very astringent to the bowels and useful in diarrhea, carminative, bechic, pectoral good in brain diseases and insanity useful in stomatitis; strengthens the liver, purify the blood; remove foul smell from the mouth.

Other

The seeds and the bark are used as an aromatic tonic in fever, dyspepsia and cholera, the fruit as well as the branches and thorns are used as a remedy for toothache; also deemed stomachic and carminative and employed to intoxicate fish. The oil obtained from the plant is said to posssess antiseptic, disinfectant and deodorant properties

 

 

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