Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/301

Rh has been used in several instances, with much success, in acute dysentery.

In South India, the dried plant is used as a demulcent. (Bidie.)

Powder of leaves given in dysentery 5-10 grs., with an equal part of powdered turmeric. Powdered seeds with honey and ginger given in diarrhœa (Vaidya Rugnathji) — J. Indraji.

The leaves are demulcent, tonic and diuretic, useful in some cases of chronic cystitis, gonorrhœa and dysuria. (Moodeen Sheriff.)

Sans. : — Kaunti.

Vern. :— Kadu Chunch (Bomb.) ; The seeds, Rája-jiren (Bomb.) ; Isbund (Sind) ; Tandassir (Kan.)

Habitat: — Sind, North-Western Provinces, from Umballa to the Punjab, Nilghiri Mountains.

An annual herb. Leaves 1-4 by 1 in. Elliptic-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, crenate-serrate, with or without basal sharp-pointed lobes ; petiole very short, pilose. Peduncles 1-3-flowered, very short, opposite the leaves. Flowers small, yellow. Capsule elongated, 3-angled ; scabrous or aculeate, straight or curved. 3-4-angled, 3-4-valved, valves scabrous, with transverse partitions, beak short, erect.

It would appear that the three varieties mentioned by Wight and Arnold (Prod. I. 72) are mere individual variations. They are : — (a) leaves ovate-oblong, capsule in pair, 3-angled ; (6) leaves ovate-oblong, capsules solitary, 4- angled ; (c) leaves oblong-lanceolate, capsules in pairs, 3-angled.

Uses : — The seeds are bitter and administered in doses of about 80 grains in fever and obstruction of the abdominal viscera (Dymock.)

The plant, macerated for a few hours in water, yields a mucilage, prescribed as a demulcent ; seeds as a specific in rheumatism (Murray.)