Having met with such success, Mr. Armitt subsequently tried it on similar occasions and always with similar results."—Chrysty's Commercial Plants and Drugs, No. 7, p. 44 (1884).
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
