Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/531

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Vern. : — Rân ghevada (Mar.).

Part used : — The root.

Habitat: — Woods of the Concan, Dekkan, Canara and Orissa.

A woody, climbing shrub, with slender, finely downy branches Leases 3-foliate. Leaflets minutely stipellate, sub-coriaceous, ovate, or sub-rhomboid al, acute, 2-4in. long, thinly grey, downy above, densely downy below. Flowers in copious, distinctly peduncled, lax or dense racemes ; bracts long, membranous, ovate, caducous ; pedicels short, densely pubescent. Corolla yellowish red, ½in. long. Calyx finally 1-l¼in., teeth scariose and persistent, the lowest much the largest and boat-shaped, lin. broad, the two side ones smaller than the two upper. Corolla enclosed in the Calyx, the petals equal in length. Keel much incurved, truncate. Stamens diadelphous ; anthers uniform. Ovary subsessile, 1-ovuled ; style long, filiform, stigma capitate. Pod small, oblique, oblong, enclosed in the Calyx.

Use : — The root is collected by the herbalists and sold as a remedy for dysentery and leucorrhœa. It is also applied externally along with other drugs to reduce tumours. Its most remarkable property is astringency ; a reddish lucid juice issues from it when cut, which, on drying, becomes black and brittle, and may be seen adhering to the short pieces of the dry root which are offered for sale (Pharmacographia Indica, Vol. L, p. 451).

Vern. : — Kasrant (Oudh) ; Simbusak (Santals) ; Bolu (Darjeeling), Bundar, Kanphuti (Bomb).

Habitat: — Himalayas, from Simla and Kumaon to Assam, Khasia and Chittagong.

An erect shrub, 5-16ft. high. Branches slender, terete, velvety. Leaves obovate, lanceolate, sub-coriacoous, 3-8in. long, green, glabrescent above, thinly silky, especially on the raised parellel erecto-patent ribs below. Stipules scariose, linear, ¼-½in. ; petiole stiffly erecto-patent, ⅛-lin. Recemes 3-6in. long,