Morphological information

An evergreen shrub with sarmentose weak rambling stems usually supported by the surrounding trees and shrubs and reaching 4.5 rn high and 5cm diameter. Young shoots glabrous. Stems and branches armed with straight or hooked prickles up to 1.8 cm long raised on old stems on the top of an oblong woody pedestal. Twigs smooth, green, not lenticellate. Bark greenish brown, smooth, with conspicuous pale circular lenticels arranged in longitudinal lines. Blaze 2.5 mm greenish. Leaves  imparipinnate, 18-40 cm. Long, rachis not winged but profusely armed with purplish prickles above and below, the upper ones straight or sometimes absent, the lower usually recurved. Leaflets subequual, ovate to oblong-ovate, acurninate base rounded glandular-sessulate, gland-dotted beneath, the lower pairs usually alternate, the upper opposite, glabrous. Petioles 1.2-4 mrn long, puber-culous. Flowers 5mm diameter, dark purplish-red in terminal pubescent, panicles long, usually with a few prickles on the rachis. Anthers bright yellow. Fruit if 1-5 carpels. Carpels 5-7.5 mm diameter, globose dull red, glabrous. Seeds solitary, 5mm diameter, shining black.

Flowering                               : April-May

Fruiting                                   : August-December

History                                   :

Parts                                       : Bark, fruits.

Status                                     : Vulnerable

Phytochemistry

Sesamin, eudesmin, epieudesmin, syringaresinol, y-fagarine, O-sitosterol and lupeol isolated (Indian J.aem. 1977,158, 9.5);zanthoxyphylline isolated along with corydine from root bark and its structure determined (Phytochemistry 1978, 17, 1068); a new alkaloid-zanoxylline- isolated from stem bark, its structure determined and confirmed by partial synthesis from coclaurine (Phytochemistfy 1979, 18, 512).

Medicinal

The bark is considered a stimulant, stomachic and digestive. It is administered in fever's as a soporific. The fruits are used in asthma, bronchitis, heart troubles, toothache and rheumatism.

Traditional

The problem like indigestion, high fever and cholera can be cured if the high concentration extract of 20-50 ml is administered orally (C.S.).

 

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