Flowers 4-6-merous. Males on short cymes, calyx woolly, campanulate or cup-shaped. Corolla tubular, ferrugineous, woolly outside, stamens 12-16. Female flowers solitary, larger than the Calyx, broad, edges recurved; ovary 4-8-celled, densely hairy; styles 2-3. Fruit glabrous, smooth, globose, or ovoid, 1-1¼in. diam., yellow, edible when ripe, supported by the thickly coriaceous Calyx, the segments with more or less recurved edges. Seeds 4-8, compressed, oblong; testa rugose, shining, albumen ruminate. Pulp yellow, sweet-aromatic, slightly mucilaginous, particularly near the testa of the seed.
Uses:—The bark of the tree, possesses astringent properties, and is used as decoction in diarrhœa and dyspepsia as a tonic. In a dilute form, it is used as an astringent lotion for the eyes.
The Hakims apply its powder in ulceration of the cornea and recommend it internally with black pepper in dysentery (Honnigberger).
N. 0. STYRACEÆ.
730. Symplocos Cratœgoides, Ham. h.f.b.i., iii. 573.
Vern.:—Lú, lándar, loj, losh (Pb.); Lodh (Kumaun); Loja (Sutlej); Lodur; Pathani lodh (Sind.).
Habitat:—Himalaya, from Kashmir to Bhotan; Khasia.
A large shrub or small tree, deciduous. Bark light-grey, corky, with long vertical cracks. Wood white, soft to moderately hard, close-grained, splits and twists in seasoning. Branchlets and leaves hairy. Leaves 2-4 by 1-1½in., broad elliptic or ovate, acuminate, sharply glandular, serrulate towards the apex, membranous, pilose beneath or glabrescent; petiole 1/5in. long. Flowers white, ¼in. diam., fragrant, in cymose corymbs, forming dense terminal or axillary panicles; bracts small, linear, caducous. Calyx: turbinate, lobes ciliate. Corolla 5-cleft nearly to the base. Stamens indefinite 20-60, equalling the corolla in length, connate, in 5 bundles. Ovary inferior, 2-celled, glabrous or hairy. Fruit ⅛-⅓in. long, obliquely ovoid, or obovoid, crowned with remains of
