Habitat
It is found in India, Burma and Sri Lanka. It grows throughout the hotter parts of India, Eastern Himalayas and is abundant in Assam, Andamans and West Bengal.

Morphology Description (Habit)
A large sized tall, deciduous tree having straight, buttressed trunk with a clear bole and widespread branches. The trunk and branch bark are gray in color having hard, sharp and conical prickles. Leaves are large, deciduous, digitate and glabrous. Leaflets 3-9, entire, lanceolate or oval, cuspidate and tip is acute. Petiole is long (up to 20 cm), petiolules 1,2-2.5 cm long, and stipules small and caducous. Flowers solitary or clustered, axillary or sub-terminal, fascicles at or near the ends of the branches, when the tree is bare of leaves. Calyx is cup-shaped usually 3 lobed. Corolla red or white, petals 5, oblong, recurved, fleshy, tomentose on the out side and sparingly pubescent inner. Staminal tube is short, more than 60 in 5 bundles. Ovary conical, glabrous, stigma 5, capsule ovoid, 5 valued dehiscing by 5 leathery, woody valves and lined with white silky hairs. Seeds are numerous, long, ovoid, black or gray in colour and packed in white cotton.

Principal Constituents
Preliminary tests show the presence of glycosides and tannins from root, stem and leaf. In the stem some alkaloids and in root proteins are identified¹. The stem bark contains lupeol and b-sitostrol². The root bark has 3 naphthalene derivatives related to gossypol (toxic principle of cotton seed) and called as 'semigossypol'³. Flowers contain b-sitosterol, traces of essential oil, kaempherol and quercetin⁴. On hydrolysis gum yield arabinose, galactose, galacturonic acid and rhamnose.

Pharmacology
Aqueous extract has moderate oxytoxic activity on gravid and non-gravid isolated rat uteri and guinea pig and rabbit uterine strips. It has musculotropic action in guinea pig ileum and cardiac stimulant action on frog's heart⁵. It has a negligible blood-pressure elevating action in anaesthetized dog⁶.

Toxicology
No adverse effect is reported on use of the plant as a drug.

Indications
The gum has aphrodisiac, astringent, demulcent, hemoptysis of pulmonary tuberculosis, influenza, malena, menorrhagia and acute dysentery with beneficial results. Flowers are used for hemorrhoids. The root has stimulant, tonic and aphrodisiac properties.

1. Mehra, Indian J Pharm, 30, 284, 1968.
2. Mukherjee, J Indian Chem Soc, 48, 789, 1971.
3. Seshadri, Curr Sci, 40,630, 1971; Indian J Chem, 11, 825, 1973.
4. Harish Gopal, J Pharm Sci, 61, 807, 1972.
5. Misra, Indian J Pharm, 30, 165, 1968.
6. Misra, Indian J Physiol & Pharmacol, 10, 59, 1966.