Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/191

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Habitat : — An English annual herb, cultivivated in Indian gardens in the cold weather.

(Sweet-mignonette). Annual or perennial. Stems diffuse, of varying height, 1-2 ft., generally, clothed with bluntish lance-shaped leaves, entire or three-lobed. Flowers in long, loose, terminal racemes. Calyx 6-parted; petals creamy, finely cut into numerous divisions. Anthers red. Seeds numerous, in an ever open capsule.

(Favourite Flowers of Garden and Greenhouse by Edward Step, F. L. S., London, 1896. Vol. I, p. 65).

Use :— It is put to the same uses as violets.

Chemistry : — The root yields an oil, on distillation, which smells of radishes, has a light brown color, a sp. gr. of 1.067 at 15°, and a rotation of +1° 30' in a 100 mm. tube. This oil is phenylethylthiocarbamide, for, when heated with strong hydrochloric acid, it yields phenylethylamine hydroclorids, carbon oxysulphide and hydrogen sulphide being evolved; phenyl- ethylthiocarbamide is produced when it is heated with alcoholic ammonia. Diphenylethyloxamide melts at 186° and phenyl- ethylthiocarbamide at 137°. (J. Ch. S. 1895, p. 218).

Vern, : — Banafsha (H.); thungtu (Kumaon).

Habitat ; — Moist woods, etc., throughout the temperate Himalaya, Khasia Hills, Pulney and Nilgiri Mountains, Ceylon,

A perennial herb, with a slender ascending root-stock, usually giving off long prostrate, glabrous, rooting branches. Hooker says: "Stolons and stems usually long, leafy and flowering." Leaves 1-1½ in,, broadly cordate-ovate, acute or obtuse, crenate-serrate, more or less hairy on both surfaces; petioles usually longer than leaves, hairy, especially at the upper part; stipules free, fimbriate. Flowers ½-⅔ in., nodding;