Indian Medicinal Plants/Natural Order Melastomaceæ
N. 0. MELASTOMACEÆ.
509. Memecylon edule, Roxb. h.f.b.l, ii. 563, Roxb. 325.
Vern.:—Limba (Mar.); Limba-toli (Kan.); Kashwa (Mal.); Alli chettu (Tel.); Kayampoovoocheddi, Casari-cheddy, Cashamarum (Tam.); Anjana, Yâlki, Lokhande (Bomb.).
Habitat:—Eastern Peninsula and Ceylon ; very common at Mahabaleshwar and on the Ghauts, less so in S. Concan.
A shrub or small handsome tree. Bark thin, light-brown, corky, narrowly-cleft ventrically. Wood light-brown, very hard, close-grained. Leaves l½-3½in., elliptic or ovate-acute at both ends, hard, acuminate. Secondary nerves more or less obscure ; petiole ⅛-1/5in. Cymes pedunculate, rarely axillary, generally above the scars of fallen leaves. Flowers brilliant blue, in a compact cyme, medium-sized. Calyx-tube at the time of flowering sauce-shaped ; limb truncate ; Calyx sometimes pink. Disk at the apex of the ovary depressed, obscurely-rayed. Berry ¼in.. diam., black-purple, globose, or slightly ovoid, mouth about ⅛in. wide.
Mr. C. B. Clarke mentions 12 varieties of this plant.
Mr. A. K. Nairne, in his " Flowering Plants of "Western India " writes:—"From the mode of growth the flowers look almost as if they were parasitical on the tree. The colors blend in a lovely manner, and a poetical forest officer aptly described them to me as forming 'globes of pink and blue and white, like living opals'."
Parts used:—The leaves and root.
Use:—The leaves are used as a cooling astringent; used in conjunctivitis as a lotion; and, given internally in leucorrhœa and gonorrhœa, they should be bruised in a mortar and infused in boiling water. Dr. Peters found them in use in Belgaum as a remedy for gonorrhœa of considerable reputation. In the Concan, the bark, with equal proportion of cocoanut kernel, ajwan seeds, yellow zedoary and black pepper, is powdered and tied up in a cloth for fomentation or applied as a lep to bruises (Dymock). The root in decoction is considered very beneficial in excessive menstrual discharge (Drury).
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