Flora Medica

TRICHOSANTHUS.Stem 5-sided, slightly downy. Tendrils 3-cleft. Leaves broadcordate,angular, and sometimes lobed, toothed, downy, very various insize. Male flowers racemose, small, white, beautifully fringed. Racemesaxillary, erect, longer than the leaves, many-flowered. Female flowersaxillary, solitary, short-peduncled, like the male ones. Fruit oval, oroblong, pointed, from 1 to 4? inches long, and from 1 inch to 1^ inch indiameter, till ripe striated with white and green, when ripe red. Seedsinvolved in a red pulp, lobed. The fruit is reckoned in India ananthelmintic.MURICIA.Monoecious. Sepals 5, enclosed in an ample undivided 1-floweredspatha, subulate, striated, coloured, united at the base.Corolla campanulate ; petals 5, ovate lanceolate, ribbed. Stamens5, triadelphous and syngenesious. Style 1 ;stigmas 3, sagittate,horizontal. Berry muricated, 1-celled, many-seeded. Seedsorbicular, large, reticulated, warted at the edge.188. M. cochinchinensis Lour. ft.coch. 596. DC. prodr.iii. 318 China and Cochinchina.A large shrub. Stem thick, woody, climbing, with solitary tendrils.Leaves 5-lobed, toothed, smooth, stalked ;the 3 upper lobes acuminate,the 2 lower rather blunt and short. Flower lateral, solitary, paleyellow, on a long stalk. Berry large, reddish purple both jnside andoutside, scentless, insipid. Seeds and leaves abstergent and aperient ;employed by the Chinese in obstructions of the liver, tumours, andmalignant ulcers. Externally employed in fractures and dislocations &c.*#* Von Martius states in his Travels in Brazil, Eng. ed. ii. 101.that the seeds of a climbing plant, with large berries, perhaps akin toFeuiltea, which are known by the name of Castanhos do Sobota, aregiven pounded, in doses of 2 or 3 drachms, in dyspepsy, and weaknessof the organs of digestion.