Holarrhena antidysenterica (Ivory tree)
| A small laticiferous, deciduous tree with woody branches; bark thick, brown, rough, with abundant milky white latex; leaves simple, opposite,ovate to elliptic, membranous with 10-14 pairs of conspicuous nerves;flowers white, in terminal corymbose cymes; fruits long, narrow, cylindric, pendulous, follicles often dotted with shite spots, seeds linear-oblong, tipped at the apex with a spreading deciduous coma of brown hairs. It’s seed is called Indrajava. Flowering-fruiting January to November. (Ashok Sheth (Ed.). 2005 The herbs of ayurveda vol.3 Gujarat : Ashok Sheth. p606) |
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प्रत्यासन्ने नभसि दयिताजीवितालम्बनार्थी The month of Nabhas was approaching; through the thundering cloud, |
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This is when he has just seen the cloud. Nabhas month is in the rainy season. Kale (1999: 13) writes, “The Kuṭaja is a small plant bearing white flowers of an inferior kind and not having a pleasing smell. But the Yaksha took up those flowers as he had them at hand being the flowers of the season”, while Kimura (1962: 184) writes that it is a small flower with weak but nice fragrance, which flowers in the rainy season. [Reference: Kale, M. R. 1999. The Meghadūta of Kālidāsa. Corrected Edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited.; Kimura, Hideo 1962. Kālidāsa Literature Series No.1: jojōshi kisetsushū kumo no shisha. Kyoto: Hyakka-en.] |
(c) Tomomi Sato 2013
Plants of Meghaduta 