scaly buds on the previous year's wood. Calyx cainpanulate, segments woolly. Drupe downy or glabrous. Pericarp tender, succulent, stone deeply and irregularly furrowed (Brandis).
Use : — The fruit is given as a demulcent, an antiscorbutic, and a stomachic.
The natives of the Punjab believe the fruit to be useful in worms, Ascaris lumbricoides (Balfour.)
The flowers are purgative.
Like other species of Prunus, the kernels yield an oil, used by the natives of North-West Himalaya for cookery, illuminating purposes, and- as a dressing for the hair. The kernels contain 32—35 per cent, of a pale yellow oil similar to almond oil. In Europe the oil enters into the composition of " French almond oil."
461. P. Armeniaca Linn, h.f.b.i., ii. 313, Roxb. 403.
Vern.:— Chuari, zardâlu khobani (H.) ; Hari, gardali, shiran (Pb.); Iser (Kashmir); Chúâru, chola (Kumaon); Zardâlu (Push.) (to.)
Eng.: — The apricot.
Habitat : — Cultivated and almost naturalised in N. W. India.
A middle-sized, deciduous tree. Bark dark-brown, rough with narrow longitudinal clefts. Sapwood white; heart wood greyish-brown, mottled with dark-brown streaks, moderately hard. Leaves convolute in bud, appearing after or with the flowers, broadly ovate, nearly as broad as long, acuminate, crenate ; petiole glandular, half the length of the leaf; stipules lanceolate. Flowers pinkish white, solitary or fasciculate, from scaly buds on the previous year's wood. Peduncles short. Drupe downy or glabrous ; pericarp tender, succulent, indehiscent. Stone smooth, with a thickened sulcate margin.
Use : — It is stated that apricots form antidotes to hill sickness. In Tibet, they are applied after mastication in ophthalmia ; and Bellew mentions that the dried fruit is in Afghanistân, used as a laxative and refrigerant in fevers, &c. (Stewart).
