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45. FAGACEAE<br />
Quercus lucitanics Lam., Encycl. 1: 719. (Fig. 218).<br />
Quercus infectoria Oliv.—Quercus lucitanica var. infectoria A. DC.—Quercus rigida C. Koch—<br />
Quercus petiolaris Boiss.<br />
Sinh. Masakka; 7am. Machakai, Mashik-kay; Hindi MajuphaJ, Mazu; Sans.<br />
Majuphal, Mayika, Mayin.<br />
An erect shrub with irregular spreading branches, brownish-grey bark and woolly or<br />
downy twigs; leaves alternate, petiolate, lamina broadly oval or obovate-oblong, 5—7.5 cm<br />
long, rounded at both ends, rather shallowly cut into large, acute or obtuse, rounded teeth or<br />
lobes, stiff and thick, smooth above, stellate hairy chiefly on the veins beneath, stipules large,<br />
strap-shaped, blunt, chaffy, pale brown and quickly deciduous; flowers unisexual, inconspicuous,<br />
monoecious; male flowers numerous, sessile, loosely and irregularly arranged on the<br />
hairy axis of very slender, pendulous catkins, generally 2 or 3 catkins together from the axils<br />
of the lowest leaves; female flowers sessile, surrounded by an involucre of several rows<br />
of triangular, strongly-imbricated, ciliate, reddish bracts forming a bud-like cup, solitary or<br />
two or three at the extremity of erect tapering peduncles arising from the axils of the uppermost<br />
leaves, each flower subtended by a deciduous, ciliate bract; . male flowers: perianth cup-shaped,<br />
deeply cut into 4—7 strap-shaped segments; stamens 4—7, inserted on the central receptacle,<br />
filaments short, anthers 2-celled dehiscing longitudinally; female flowers: perianth completely<br />
fused with the ovary, usually with 6 teeth; ovary inferior, thick, fleshy, 3-loculed with two erect<br />
ovules in each loculus, style thick and short, stigma fleshy with 3 spreading lobes; fruit surrounded<br />
at the base by the enlarged involucre which has become a solid, hemispherical cup with an entire<br />
margin, covered with dense, grey tomentum, solitary or two or three ina cluster, readily separating<br />
from the cupule when ripe, 1-loculed, indehiscent; seed solitary, completely filling the pericarp.<br />
Flowers in May and the fruit ripens in September.<br />
Illustrations. Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, pi. 249. 1880; Olivier, Voy. dans<br />
T Empire Othoman, Atlas, pis. 14 and 15.<br />
Distribution. Grows abundantly in many parts of Asia Minor, especially Syria, Greece,<br />
Southern Turkey and Cyprus. It does not grow in Ceylon and India.<br />
Composition. The galls used in medicine are formed by the hypertrophied vegetable<br />
tissues as a result of punctures made by insects in leaf buds to lay their eggs. They are picked<br />
before or after the insect has escaped.<br />
The galls contain ellagic acid in addition to sugar, resin, etc.<br />
Uses. The bark and acorns of this shrub are used in the form of an ointment with vaseline<br />
in the treatment of eczema and other skin diseases. These galls are the most powerful<br />
of vegetable astringents. In decoction, they are used in diarrhoea, dysentery and as an-antidote<br />
to poisoning by'vegetable alkaloids. As a gargle they are useful in stomatitis. An ointment<br />
prepared from the galls with opium is a beneficial application on anal fissures and ulcerating<br />
haemorrhoids.<br />
247