Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/555

Rh A gregarious, pubescent, tall shrub. Branches virgate, irregularly-scattered, sometimes horizontally, sometimes vertically arranged. Leaves nearly sessile, underside finely grey-downy, 3-4in. long. Leaflets 8-12 pair, obovate-oblong, or elliptic-oblong, obtuse, mueronate, ½-lin. long, with a piliform gland at the base of each pair ; stipules large, foliaceous, persistent. Flowers yellow in terminal corymbose, bracteate panicels, the lowest branches in the axils of leaves, the upper supported by pairs of stipules. Sepals concave, unequal. Petals clawed, crisped on margin, ¾-1 in. long. Pod 3-4 by fin., then hairy, ligulate, few-seeded, glabrous, flexible, dark-brown, with a distinct space between the unseriate seeds (J. G. BAKER).

Parts used : — The bark and seeds.

Use : — The Vytians reckon the seeds amongst their refrigerants and attenuants, and prescribe them in electuary, in cases in which, the habit is preternaturally heated or depraved. They also consider the powder of the dry seeds as a valuable external remedy (blown into the eye), in certain stages of ophthalmia. 01 the electuary the dose is a small teaspoonful twice daily (Ainslie).

Dr. Kirkpatrick brings to notice the astringent properties of the bark, and speaks favorably of the use of the seeds as an application to the eyes in chronic purulent conjunctivitis (Catalogue of Mysore Drugs. Ph. Ind.)

The Singhalese pull the twigs and hold them in their hands, or apply them to their heads for the coolness which they diffuse : and they use the leaves in the S. of the island as a substitute for tea (TENNANT).

Syn. : — Cassia Senna, Linn. Senna obtusa, Roxb.

Eng. : — Country Senna.

Vern. : — Bhuí-tarwad (Bom.).

Habitat : — The Western Peninsula, Mysore and South India, especially the Coromandel coast.

Sub-glabrous, scarcely shrubby, l-4ft. high. Leaf-rachis