Use : —The dried petals are slightly tonic and astringent, and useful in debility. They are officinal in the Indian and British Pharmacopœias.
476. R. alba Linn. H.F.B.I., ii. 364.
Vern.: — Swet or Sevanti gulâb (H. and B.) ; Gul-seati (Pb.)
Syn.: — R. glandulifera, Roxb. 407.
Habitat : — Cultivated in India.
Caucasus, Afghanistan ? (J. D. Hooker).
Leaflets 5-7, large, grey, rugose, downy and pale beneath. Flowers large white pale, or bluish, double. Sepals often pinnatifid.
Use : — The flowers are used as a cooling medicine in fevers, also in palpitation of the heart (Baden Powell.) The petals made into gulkand in Poona (a preserve with cane-sugar).
477. Cydonia vulgaris Pers, h.f.b.i., ii. 369.
Syn : — Pyrus cydonia, Linn. Roxb, 406.
Vern : Bihi (H.) ; Bamtsunt, bamsutu (Kashmir) ; Shimai-madala virai (Tam.).
Eng :-— The Quince.
Habitat : —Cultivated in N.-W. India.
A large shrub ; branchlets, underside of leaves, peduncles and calyx white-tomentose. Wood light brown, soft, even-grained. Leaves ovate from an obtuse base, entire ; petioles short, stipules oblong, obtuse, glandular-serrate. Flowers white, 2in. across. Calyx-lobes leafy, glandular-serrate, longer than tube. Fruit large, clothed with grey, woolly tomentum ; 5-celled ; endocarp cartilaginous. Seeds many, testa mucilaginous. Flowers in March and April.
Parts used :— -The seeds.
Use : — The sweet and sub-acicl quinces are commonly eaten as a fruit by the Arabs and Persians, and are considered cephalic, cardiacal and tonic. The leaves, buds and bark of the tree are domestic remedies among the Arabs on account of their astringent properties. In India, the seeds are considered cold, moist, and slightly astringent, and are one of the most popular remedies in native practice, the mucilage being
