kancanara rakta :

Bark, dark brown, sometimes with silvery patches,

rough, compact, exfoliating in woody strips and scales,

outer surface with small transverse and longitudinal cracks,

internal surface white, taste, astringent

Transverse section of mature stem bark shows a wide stratified cork,

outer cork composed of thin-wailed, slightly compressed, yellow brown cells followed by a number

of layers of brown coloured cells,

inner cork composed of transversely elongated orange brown cells, cork interrupted at certain places due to formation of rhytidoma,

some secondary cortex composed or 15 or more rows or transversely elongated to circular,

thin-walled, parenchymatous cells,

some secondary cortex cells contain orange brown contents: groups of stone cells found scattered in this region occasionally arranged in 1-7

or more tangential rows, pericyclic fibres, thick-walled with narrow lumen, scattered in

secondary cortex in singles or in groups,

secondary phloem consists of sieve tubes, companion cells, phloem parenchyma and fibres traversed by funnel shaped medullary rays ,

phloem fibres arranged in radial rows throughout phloem region, prismatic and rhomboidal crystals or calcium, oxalate abundantly found in phloem and

secondary cortex regions, very rarely found in cork cells,

cluster crystals also present in secondary

cortex and secondary phloem, crystal fibres also found in secondary phloem

Kotakkal Ayurveda - Mother land of modern ayurveda

kancanara rakta - Bauhinia variegata Linn. - Fabaceae