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