dissepiments remaining attached to the valves. Seeds imbricate, oblong winged, compressed ; cotyledons planoconvex. Exalbuminous.
Found common in the dry regions of Ceylon. There is a good tree in the Ratnagiri Club garden. It yields the well- known satin wood, very hard, heavy, fine-grained, yellow, (reddish-brown rather, K. R. K.), with a satiny lustre. It is the principal timber from Ceylon (Trimen).
Parts used : — The bark and leaves.
Use : — The astringent bark is sometimes prescribed (Dymock). Leaves are applied to wounds (Beddome) : also used in rheumatism (C. P. Gaz. 118). Watt ii. 270.
N. 0. OLACINEÆ.
276. Olax scandens, Roxb. h. f. b. l, i 575 ; Roxb. 55.
Vern. : — Dheniani (H.) ; Koko-arn (B.); Rimmel (Kol) ; Bodo-bodo-ria (Yriya); Hund (Santal) ; Harduli ; Urchirri (Mar) ; Kurpodur ; marki ; malle, turka-vepa; bapanamushti ; kotiki (Yel). Kakundan (Jabalpur) ; Kadalracnhi (Tam.).
Habitat :— Tropical Western Himalaya in Kumaon ; Oudh Berar ; Central and Southern India. Rohilkund, Tenasserim, Burma, Ceylon (dry country rather common.)
A large, rambling shrub, sometimes a climber. Bark grey, ¼in. thick, deeply cleft vertically, vessels large. Wood porous, yellow- white, soft (Gamble.) Trunk as thick as a man's thigh. A few stout thorns on the older branches. Branches terete, more or less puberulous, prickly, stout, curved. Branchlets, petiole and midrib puberulous. Leaves distichous, ovate, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 2-3in. long, yellowish-green, glabrous or sometimes puberulous beneath. Petiole 1/12-1/6in. Racemes solitary, axillary half the length of the leaves. Peduncles erect, twice the length of the minute bracts. Flowers many, white, sweet-scented, small, ⅛in. Bracts ovoid caducous. Buds ovoid. Calyx puberulous or glabrescent. Petals 3-5-6, irregularly cleft. More or less cohering, says Brandis ; linear, acute, recurved. Fertile stamens 3, anthers oblong. Staminodes 2-fid.
