Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/517

Rh way down the sides, the whole covered with orange-red, deciduous wool mingled with irritant red bristles. Seeds solitary, nearly circular, compressed, dark brown, hilum linear, extending round ¾ of the edge.

Part used. — The seed.

Use : — The seed used as an expectorant in cough and asthma, and is applied externally as a sedative (Peters).

Syn. : — Carpopogon giganteum, Roxb. 554.

Vern. : -Kaku-valli (Mal.)

Habitat.— Plains of the West Peninsula, Ceylon, Malaya.

A large, woody climber, with slender, glabrous branches. Stem thin, but sometimes 250ft. long. Leaflets ovate, acute, glabrous when mature ; flowers on long slender pedicels, almost umbellate at end of long peduncles. Pod 4-6in, apiculate, with broad double wings along both sutures, but without wings or plates on the sides, densely covered with adpressed, chestnut-brown, irritant bristles.

Uses. — Used in rheumatic complaints. The bark for this purpose is pulverized, mixed with dry ginger, and rubbed over the parts affected (Rheede).

Sans.- -Atmagupta, kapikachhu, vanari.

Vern. :— Kiwach, goucha(H) ; Alkusa (B.) Konatch (Nepal.) ; Kâch-kuri (Dec.) ; Kuhili (Bomb.) ; Kavach (Mar.) ; Kivânch (Guz) ; Punaik-kali (Tam.) ; Pilliaduga (Tel.) ; Nâyik-korana (Mal.) ; Nasaguni-gida (Kan.)

Habitat : — Cosmopolitan in the Tropics, from the Himalayas in the plains to Ceylon and Burma. Western Peninsula, Assam, Khasi Hills.

A semi-woody climber, annual or perennial, with slender terete branches, usually clothed with short, white, deflexed hairs. Leaves large, rachis 3-5in. ; sparingly deflexed, hairy. Leaflets 3-4in., on short thick hairy stalks, terminal ones smaller and rhomboid-oval, lateral ones very unequal, with the lower half greatly dilated, all acute, mucronate, pubescent above,