Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/216

136 equalling the sepals, very delicate or soon falling off or 0 Stamens 8-12. Style 3-8-fid. Capsule dehiscent transversely, inclosed in sepals, the free portions of which also separate by transverse division and come away with the lid. Seeds numerous, muricate, dark brown. The flowers are yellow and open only for a few hours in the morning. Flowers all the year round.

Parts used :— The plant, leaves, and seeds,

Uses : — The plant has long been used as a domestic remedy by the Hindus, and was early noticed by European writers. Ainslie writes thus of P. quadrifida which posesses the same properties: — "The bruised fresh leaves of this acid and pleasant-tasted purslane are prescribed by the Tamool practitioners as an external application in akki, erysipelas; an infusion of them is also ordered as a diuretic in dysuria, to the extent of half-a-tea-cupful twice daily." He further mentions that in Jamaica, P. oleracea is employed as a cooling and moistening herb in " burning fevers." Bruised, it is applied to the temples to allay " excessive heat " and pain, and that the juice is " of use in spitting of blood." Dymock says that both species are supposed by Arabian and Persian writers to be cold and moist, and to have detergent and astringent properties. The plant and seeds are recommended by them in a great many diseases of the kidneys, bladder, and lungs, which are supposed to be caused by hot or bilious humours. They are also praised as an external application in burns, scalds, and various forms of skin disease (Mat. Med., W. Ind.). Moodeen Sheriff describes the seeds as demulcent, slightly astringent, and diuretic; the leaves as refrigerant, astringent, diuretic, and emollient. He believes, both to be " very useful" in some cases of strangury, dysuria, irritation of the bladder, hæmaturia, hæmatemesis, hæmoptysis, and gonorrhœa. " In addition to this," he writes, " the seeds seem to have some beneficial influences over the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal, and therefore relieve tormina, tenesmus, and other distressing symptoms in many cases of dysentery and mucous diarrhœa. This is particularly the case when they are combined