LEMU
English : Lemon
Urdu : Lemu/Lembu/Nembu/Nenbu/Bara Nebu
Telugu : Bijapuram/Pedda Nimba
Description :
It is a small glabrous tree 3-6 m high with stout and stiff thorns. Leaves are pale-green,oblong to elliptic, ovate 5-10 cm long,short-pointed or obtuse,flowers,solitary or clustered in the axils 8-16 mm long pinkish outside but white inside and fruits oblong to avoid with a terminal nipple , 7.5-12.5 cm long ,light-yellow,shallowly roughened segments 8-10 , very sour.
Externally, lemon peel is pale or greenish yellow in colour,the surface being glabrous but somewhat rough owing to the presence of large oil glands just beneath the epidermis.Internally it contains only a small amount of the white spongy part of the pericarp.
Action and Uses:
Lemon juice is a valuable anti-scorbutic and cooling drink,primarily anti-alkaline and secondarily anti-acid. It is digestive, anti-billious and appetizer and benefecially used in heart-burn,excessive thrist ,spongy and bleeding gums ,nausea,vomiting and headache due to billiouseness and in seasonal or intermittent fevers.
Externally,it is cleansing and beautifying agent and used for removing dry itching,red eruptions,acne vulgaris and freckles,in hair-falling and dandruff.It is also used in the form of mouth-wash or gargle in spongy and bleeding gums.
Lemon peel is internally bitter stomachic and carminative and externally beautifying.It is used orally in gastric upset,nausea,vomiting,diarrhoea, headache and vertigo and also included in the remedies of skin diseases and face powders,e.g dry scabies,skin eruptions,freckles and acne vulgaris etc.
Ibn sina’s View:
Fruit is astrigent and drying.Useful in diarrhoea,intestianal bleeding when drunk with wine and also in menstrual bleeding.