to petals ; with here and there an abortive anther or anthers ; the second is the variety which bears hermaphrodite flowers finally bearing fruit. Branchlets round, often spinescent. " Bark grey, thin, peeling off in small flakes. Wood light-yellow, with a small dark-coloured, irregular heartwood, hard, compact, and close-grained " (Gamble). Brandis says the tree is deciduous. Leaves opposite, often fascicled on arrested branches commonly l-3in. long by ½-¾in.. broad, narrower at both ends, oblong-lanceolate or oblanceolate, obtuse, narrowed into a slender petiole, intra-marginal nerve distinct or obscure. Hermaphrodite flowers shortly pedicelled, axillary, solitary or somewhat clustered large orange red. Calyx- tube funnel-shaped, coriaceous, adnate to the ovary below, enlarged above the ovary ; lobes 5-7 persistent on the fruit. Petals ½in., inserted in the mouth of the Calyx-tube crumpled in bud. Stamens numerous, inserted at different levels below the petals, anther-cells attached to the edges of a broad connective. Style long, bent. Stigma capitate. Carpels in several tiers on the inside of a hollow receptacle, here called Calyx-tube. Ovules numerous, placentas in some cells axile, in others parietal. Carpels coalesce early
and form a large globose indehiscent fruit crowned by the persistent Calyx and containing under a coriaceous rind two tiers of cells, Sin. the lower, 5-9in., the upper, tier. Seeds numerous in each cell, and surrounded by red juice. Cotyledons foliacious, spirally convolute.
" An anomalous genus allied to Myrtaceœ through Psidium, and to Rosaceœ through Cydonia." (Duthie).
Uses :— Hindoo physicians use the fresh juice of the fruits as an ingredient of cooling and refrigerant mixtures of some medicines for dyspepsia. They also use the rind of the fruit and the flowers, combined with aromatics, such as cloves, cinnamon, coriander, pepper, etc., as a bowel astringent in diarrhœa. The seeds are considered to be stomachic, the pulp cardiac and stomachic. No notice is to be found of the medicinal use of the pomegranate root-bark in Sanskrit works (U. C. Dutt).
The Arabs recommend the root-bark as being the most astringent part of the plant, and a perfect specific in cases of
