Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/575

Rh glands between each along the hairy rachis. Leaflets 12-15 pair, minute, puberulous, sessile, 1/10in. long, linear-oblique, closely set, acute at the apex. Flowers crowded, in short, dense axillary spikes, the upper flowers of each spike bisexual, yellow, the lower sterile, white or purple, with long filiform staminodes, ½in. long. Calyx, minute, membranous. Corolla 3 times as long as the Calyx, 1/10in. long. Pod 2-3in. by ¼-2/5in., dark-brown ; irregularly twisted, 6-10 seeded ; seeds obovoid, compressed, glabrous, indehiscent, opening irregularly.

Use : — The young shoots are bruised and applied to the eyes in cases of ophthalmia (AINSLIE).

Sans. : — Vârâhkrânta, lajjalu.

Vern. :— Lajâlu (H.) ; Lajak (B.) ; Lâjwanti (Kumaon) ; Lajri (Mar.) ; Total-vadi (Tam.).

Habitat : — Throughout the hotter parts of India, the cultivated and found in the waste lands of the Dun. Flowers in Dûn in August and September. Fruits in November and December.

Sensitive shrubby herb, with stem and rachis copiously bristly and prickly. The copious bristly hairs of the branchlets and petioles deflexed, those of the leaf rachis ascending. Rachis 1-1½in. long. Leaves digitate. Pinnæ of the leaves 3-4, nearly sessile, 2-3in. long ; leaflets 24-40, glabrous, sub-coriaceous. Flowers in small, peduncled, bright-pink heads all down the branches, 1-2 from each axil. Pod small, ½-¼in. long ; sensitive, with very abundant straw-coloured weak prickles from both sutures, as long as the breadth of the pod. Flowers and fruits all through the year in garden, when cultivated.

Use : — Mir Mahommed Husain (the author of the Makhzan) tells us that it is much valued as a medicine by the Indians, and is considered to be resolvent alterative, and useful in diseases arising from corrupted blood and bile. The juice is also applied externally to fistulous sores (DYMOCK).

A decoction of the root of this plant is considered on the Malabar Coast to be useful in gravellish complaints. The Vytians of the Coromandel side of India, prescribe the leaves and