Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/685

Rh Perennial herbs, climbing, with 2-fid tendrils. Rootstock large, tuberous. Stems very slender, glabrous, often spotted with darker green ; internodes very long. Leaves 3-5in., ovate-rotundate in outline, very deeply cordate at base, cut nearly to the base into 5-lanceolate or linear-acute, coarsely serrate segments, the two basal ones deeply pedate, glabrous, thin, the upper surface slightly rough, with minute scattered scales. Petiole 1-l½in. Flowers very pale yellow, in small clusters of 3-6, on short pedicels. Calyx-segments linear, filiform. Corolla- segments oval-oblong, acute, pubescent. Fruit globose, over ¾in. diam., smooth, bluish green, with broad, white, vertical stripes. Seeds ¼in. gibbous at sides, with a prominent raised band round the edge.

Use : — The whole plant is collected when in fruit for medicinal use. It is bitter and aperient, and is considered to have tonic properties (Dymock).

Syn. : — -Bryonia scabrella, Linn., f. Roxb. 702.

Vern. : — Bilari, agumaki (H.); Gwâla-kakri (U. P.); Chirâti, bellari (Sind.) ; Musu-musuk-kai (Ta.); Kutarubudama, putribudinga (Tel.) ; Chirâti (Mar.).

Habitat : — Common throughout India.

Perennial herbs ; tendrils simple. Stems climbing, long, slender, much-branched, angular, very hispid, with spreading bristly hairs, young parts covered densely with white hair. Leaves variable in size, usually 3-4in., but often only lin. or less, deltoid-ovate, very deeply cordate at base, with a white sinus, and the rounded lobes often overlapping, acute or obtuse at apex, rather shallowly 5-lobed, coarsely dentate-serrate, usually scabrous, with stiff hairs on both sides. Petiole fully half as long as the leaves, cylindric, very hispid. Flowers very small, males on sessile peduncles as long as calyx ; females nearly sessile. Calyx hairy, segments linear. Petals ovate, ciliate, a little longer than Calyx-segments. Berry about ½in., broadly ovoid, apiculate, with a few scattered hairs. Fruit scarlet