The leaves are prescribed as an infusion for piles in the N. W. P. (Atkinson).
In Chutia Nagpur, the powdered root is given when from weakness the patient vomits his food ; the fruit and leaves are also used medicinally (RED.A.CAMPBELL).
444. Acacia Farnesiana, Willd., h.f.b.l, ii. 292.
Syn. : — Mimosa farnesiana, Linn. Roxb. 421.
Vern. : — Vilâyati kikar, Vilâyati bâbûl, Gu-kikar (H.) ; Guya bâbla (B.) ; Vedda vala, Piy-Velam (Tam.) ; Pivelam (Mal.) ; Piyi-tnmma, Kampu-tumma, Naga-tumma (Tel.); Jali (Kan.); Gûi-bâbhul (Mar.) ; Talbaval (Guz.) ; Kue bâwal (Sind.)
Habitat : — Himalayas to Ceylon.
A thorny shrub. Bark light brown, rough. Wood hard, close-grained ; sapwood white ; heart-wood irregular. Branches striate, glabrous, curved with pale-brown lenticels. Stipular spines white, straight, ¼-¾in. long, hard, sharp, divaricate. Leaves bipinnate ; rachis l-2in. long, angular, pubescent, with a small raised gland about the middle of the petiole ; pinnae 4 — 8 pair, ¾-1¼in. long ; leaflets 10-20 pair, 1/5-1/7 by 11/12 — 1/20 linear, acute, glabrous, sessile ; base rounded, oblique. Flowers bright-yellow, powerfully sweet-scented, in globose fasciculate heads ¼in. diam.; peduncles f-lin. long, on axillary nodes with a ring of small membranous bracts near the middle or close to the flowers. Calyx carapanulate, very minute. Corolla lin. long ; lobes short, triangular. Pod nearly cylendric pointed at the ends, 2-3½in. long, by ½in. broad glabrous, brown, veined, indehiscent. Seeds in 2 series, embedded in dry, spongy tissue (Talbot).
Use : — The bark is astringent and often used as a substitute for A. arabica bark. A. farnesiana used as an adjunct to aphrodisiacs, in the treatment of spermatorrhœa (Calthrop). The bark is used as an astringent in the form of a decoction. Tender leaves bruised in a little water and swallowed ; said to be useful in gonorrhœa.
The oil of Cassia flowers contains benzaldehyde, salicylic acid, methyl salicylate, benzyl alcohol, an aldehyde, which has an odour resembling that of decyl-aldehyde and forms a semicarbazone melting at 97° and a Ketone, which has an odour of violets and forms a semicarbazone melting at 143°. Eugenol is not present.— J. Ch. S. 1903 A. I, 845,
