Range. Native to India, Indo-China, Myanmar, and Thailand. Cultivated and im­ported elsewhere. Reported from Myanmar.

Uses. Fruit: Used as astringent, antidysenteric, laxative, and tonic. After soaking crushed fruit in water overnight, the clear liquid is used as an eye drop to cure aching eyes. Drinking the fruit powder dissolved in milk daily promotes longevity.

Seed: Made into a paste to treat pimples.

Leaf: Used to cure eye problems and to make laxatives, carminatives, and thway-hsay (literally means “blood medicine”), the traditional blood purification mixture. Used to treat various male and female related disorders, and to treat hemorrhoids.

Bark: Boiled and the liquid taken to treat diarrhea and dysentery. Crushed and used as a poultice to prevent excessive bleeding.

------------

Origin

Abundant in Northern India. Also occurs in the forests of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, especially in Konkan.

Action:

Gentle purgative, astringent (unripe fruits are more purgative, ripe ones are more astringent; sennoside A and anthraquinone glycoside is laxative, tannins are astringent), stomachic, antibilious, alterative. Used in prescriptions for treating flatulence, constipation, diarrhoea, dysentery, cyst, digestive disorders, vomiting, enlarged liver and spleen, cough and bronchial asthma, and for metabolic harmony.

Bark—diuretic.

1) DeFilipps, Robert A.; Krupnick, Gary A. / PhytoKeys, v. 102. - - p. 1 - 314,  2018.

2) Khare, C.P./ Indian Medicinal Plants. -- Nueva Dheli: Springer, 2007 . - p 654.