Bengal, at Comilla, Chittagong, Deccan Peninsula, from the Concan southwards.
A straggling shrub, climber or erect tree. Bark dark-brown, ¼ or ½in. thick, deeply cleft in vertical or spiral fissures and peeling off in thick plates. Wood light-yellow, moderately hard. Trunk sometimes 6in. diam. ; branches often spinescent. Leaves ovate-oblong, elliptic or almost rounded, obtuse or acute ; blade 3-5in. ; petiole ¼-½in. long. Branchlets, petioles, under-side of leaves densely clothed with ferruginous or silvery, circular, dentate and lobed scales. Flowers male and bi-sexual, scented ; pedicellate in few or many-fid, often pedunculate fascicles. Perianth clothed outside with silvery or ferruginous scales ; in the fertile flower much constricted above the ovary. Fruit 1-1½in., ovoid-oblong, succulent, red or yellow pulp when ripe, edible. Endocarp ribbed, coriaceous, clothed inside with a dense felt or white hairs.
Uses : — The flowers are officinal in Sind and Punjab, and are considered cardiac and astringent. (Stewart.) Griffith says that fruit is used medicinally in Kashmere as an astringent. Very agreeable to taste.
1104. Hippophœ rhamnoides, Linn., h.f.b.i., v. 203.
Vern. : — Tsarap, tsarana, sirna, tsuk, tasru (Ladak, Piti and Lahoul) ; Dhûrchûk, târwâ, chûk, chuma (U. P.) ; Kála bisa, bânt phût, amb, kando, milech, miles, suts, rul (Pb.).
Habitat: — North-Western Himalaya; in the beds of streams of the inner drier ranges, from Kumaon westwards.
A large, thorny, dioecious shrub, sometimes a small tree, with rigid branches, and silvery twigs and leaves. Bark grey, rough, with vertical furrows. Heartwood yellowish-brown, mottled, moderately hard, close-grained. Leaves short-petioled, alternate, ½-2 by 1/10-⅓in., sub-coriaceous, glabrescent and dull-green above, felted with grey or rust- coloured, circular or irregularly indented scales beneath. Male flowers in axillary clusters on the old wood. Perianth with two opposite oblong segments, filaments short. Female flowers axillary, solitary, pedicelled.
