Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/613

Rh trifoliate, upper few, scattered, linear, ¼-½in. long. Corymb flattish or more rarely elongate. Flowers clear, yellow; the Corolla-tube glabrous. Calyx in fruit often as much as ⅜in. wide, 4-partite, elongate. Corolla, with a flask-shape tube and spreading 4-fid limb, much exceeding the Calyx, persistent. Stamens 8, in two series, adnate to the Corolla-tube, hypogynous scales 4, linear. Carpels 4, adnate to the base of the Corolla-tube, attenuated into long styles ; ovules very many. Follicles 4, seeds very many, oblong, ellipsoid, with 8-15 longitudinal ribs.

Part used: — The leaf.

Use : — It is poisonous to goats, and the leaves are, at Lahore, reckoned a specific for cholera. In Kangra, they are burned and applied to abscesses. (Stewart).

Syn. : — Cotyledon lanciniata, Roxb. 388 ; K. teretifolia, Haw.

Sans. :— Hemságara (Sea of Gold).

Vern. : — Tukhmhyát, Parna-bij (Bomb.) ; Mala-kullie (Tam.).

Habitat : — Tropical regions of the Deccan Peninsula, in Bengal, at Patna and Dacca.

A suffruticose, fleshy plant. Leaves opposite, pinnatifid-laciniate, the lobes thick, entire, sub-serrate or dentate. Cymes panicled. Calyx 4-partite, sepals lanceolate, acuminate, spreading. Corolla hypocrateriform ; tube cylindrical ; limb spreading, 4-partite. Carpels 4 ; styles filiform.

There are 3 varieties.

Uses:- The succulent leaves are valued as an application to wounds and sores ; they allay irritation and promote cicatrization. In the Concan, the juice of the leaves is given in bilious diarrhœa and lithiasis. (Dymock).

I can myself speak of their good effects in cleaning ulcers and allaying inflammation (Ainslie).