Fruits - Specimen details

Fruits - Specimen details

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Catalogue Number: 62420

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Plant Name 51.01 SAPINDACEAE Sapindus trifoliatus Entry Book Number 77.1900
Artefact Name Fruits Vernacular Name
Iso Country India TDWG Region India
Parts Held Fruits Geography Description India, Madras, Godavari
Uses FruitsUse: MEDICINES User: Man TDWG use MEDICINES
Storage Bottles, boxes etc Related Items
Donor Paris Exhibition 1900 Donor No 680 DD p24
Donor Date Donor Notes India Museumx0Dx0A
Collector Collector No
Collection Notes Collection Date
Exhibition Expedition
Number Components Publication
Notes: Label source: The soapnut, in Sanskrit phenila, has probably been in use among the Hindus from the earliest ages as a detergent. Both Hindus and Mahometans use it medicinally. The latter on their first arrival in the country gave it the name of bunduk, or finduk i hindee (Indian filbert). The following account of its use is extracted from the Makhzan ul adwiya. The pulp of the fruit is at first sweetish to the taste, afterwards very bitter; it is hot and dry. Tonic and alexipharmic. A four grain dos, e in wine and sherbet cures colic. One miskal rubbed in water until it soaps, and then strained may be given to people who have been bitten by venemous reptiles and to those suffering from diarrhoea or cholera. Three or four grains may be given by the n, ose in all kinds of fits producing insensibility. Fumigations with it are suseful in hysteria and melancholy. Externally it may be applied, made into a plaster with vinegar, to the bites of reptiles and to scrofulous swellings. The root is said to be u, seful as an expectorant. Pessaries made of the kernel of the seed are used to stimulate the uterus in childbirth and amenorrhoea. One miskal of the pulp with one eighth of a miskal of scammony acts as a good brisk purgative. Ainslie mentions its use by, the Vytians as an expectorant in asthma. In Bombay it is given successfully as an anthelmintic in four grain doses. Berries 3 - united, when ripe soft, and of a yellowish green colour, singly they are of the size of a cherry, somewhat uniform with a h, eart shaped scar on the attached side. When dry they are of the colour of a raisin; skin shrivelled, pulp translucent, absent on the attached side. The inner shell enclosing the seed is thin tough and translucent like parchment, except at the scar, whe, re it is woody. Seed the same shape as the fruit, black smooth except at the hilum, where it is tomentose, size of a large pea; on the upper part of the dorsum of the seed are two shallow diverging furrows. The testa is double the outer very thick and h, ard; the inner membranaceous, kernel yellowish green and oily; cotyledons unequal, thick, firm and fleshy, spirally incurvate. The pulp of the fruit smells like compound extract of colocynth; its taste is sweet at first, afterwards very bitter.

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