Two varieties are known : say some writers sweet and sour.
K. R. K. The fruit is sour when unripe and acid-sweet when ripe.
A small densely branched tree. " Bark dark grey with horizontal folds. Wood white, turning light red, moderately hard, close-grained. Pores moderate-sized, often subdivided or disposed in short radial lines, scanty, prominent on a vertical section. Medullary rays very fine, very numerous and regular, somewhat indistinct" (Gamble). Leaves alternate, exstipulate, pinnate with a terminal leaflet. Leaflets subopposite, ovate, acuminate or ovate-lanceolate, acute, glabrous and glaucous beneath, 2-5 pair, 1½-3in. ; petiole stout, pubescent. Flowers small, variegated white and purple ; panicles axillary, sometimes on the old wood. Calyx glabrous, half as long as the petals. Stamens 10-5 shorter without anthers, or sometimes one or two of these longer and antheriferous. Ovary pubescent. Fruit yellow, changing into brown ; ellipsoid, Sin. long with 5 prominent ridges, converting the fruit into one of 5 acutely angled lobes. Seeds arillate ; aril 2-lobed, lacerated. With regard to the arillus Brandis remarks thus : — Funicle of seed dilated "into a fleshy, bilabiate, irregularly cut arillus." It must be noted that, according to Edge, and Hook, F. the leaflets are irritable to touch.
Parts used : — The leaves, root and fruit.
Uses : — Used as a cooling medicine.
The acid dried fruit is given in fevers (Irvine p. 55.) It is cooling and useful in feverishness and possesses anti-scorbutic properties (Watt's Dictionary I. p. 360.)
"The ripe fruit, which is generally sour (though there is a sweet variety) and contains oxalic acid, is a good remedy for bleeding piles, particularly in that variety of the disease which is known as internal piles. I have used it in several cases with more or less benefit, but in a few the result was very satisfactory, the bleeding disappearing rapidly and permanently. There is no doubt that the fruit will also produce a good effect in hæmatemesis, melæna, and some other forms of hæmorrhage,
