Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/496

416 cent, or finely downy, slightly recurved, 6-10-seeded. Style sub-glabrous penicillate at the tip.

Parts used : — The root, root-bark and seeds.

Uses : — Native works on Materia Medica describe this plant as deobstruent and diuretic, useful in cough and tightness of the chest, bilious febrile attacks, obstructions of the liver, spleen and kidneys. They recommend it as a purifier of the blood and for boils, pimples, &c. The author of the Makhzan mentions its use in combination with Cannabis Indica leaves (two parts of the former to one of the latter) as a remedy for bleeding piles, and with black pepper as a diuretic, especially useful in gonorrhœa (Dymock).

The root is bitter and given by Native practitioners in dyspepsia and chronic diarrhœa (O'Shaughnessy).

The plant is used internally as a purifier of the blood, and is considered a cordial. An infusion of the seeds is given as a cooling medicine (Dr. Stewart).

The plant appears to act as a tonic and laxative (Dymock).

In Ceylon, it is employed as an anthelmintic for children (Thwaites).

In the Punjab, an infusion of the seeds is believed to be cooling (Stewart.)

Fresh root-bark, ground and made into a pill, with a little black pepper, is frequently given in cases of obstinate colic, with marked success (Surgeon-Major Levinge of Madras, in Watt's Dictionary.)

Vern. : — Vaykkavalai (Tarn.)

Habitat: — From the Himalayas to Ceylon.

Habit of T. purpurea, but stems lanceolate, firmer and more woody, clothed with short, adpressed white hairs. Leaves nearly sessile, 2 3in. long, stipules linear, ascending or reflexed. Leaflets 13-19, grey green, glabrescent above, persistently silky below, narrow, oblanceolate, often emarginate. Raceme half a foot or more long. Lower flowers indistinct, fascicled.