Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/686

606 when ripe. Seeds horizontal, closely packed, oval, compressed in pulp. Flowers all the year, yellow (Trimen).

Uses : — The seeds in decoction are sudorific. The root, similarly prepared, is useful in flatulence, and, when masticated, relieves toothache (Atkinson). The tender shoots and bitter leaves are used as a gentle aperient and recommended in vertigo and biliousness (Dr. Peters, in Watt's Dictionary).

Vern. : — Bân-kûndri (Chutia Nagpur).

Habitat : — North Bengal ; common in Sikkim, Assam, Khasia, and Cachar. Deccan Peninsula and Ceylon, common ; apparently always in the lower hills.

A climbing herb, with simple tendrils. Stem weak, nearly glabrous. Leaves cordate, acute, simple or angular, or 3-5-lobed half-way down, generally asperous above, and hairy beneath. Petiole larger than the auricles. Ovary glabrous, even before the expansion of the flower. Fruit 3-8in. diam. when dry, reticulate, rugose, globose. Seeds much flattened, oblong, margined, smooth or slightly tuberculate on the faces.

Use : — Root used with milk in fever and for diarrhœa (J. J. Wood's Plants of Chutia Nagpur, p. 106).

Syn. : — Momordica umbellata, Roxb. 697.

Vern. : — Anant-mul, Tarali (H.) ; Kudari (B.) ; Gometta or Gometti (Bomb.); Tid-dândâ (Tel.) ; At (Santal) ; Gulkukru, Gulale-kukrigulârki (Kullu) ; Bankakra (Chamba) (Pb.).

Habitat:— Very common throughout India. This plant I found growing wild in my Ratnagiri garden, Outram House, 1898 to 1904 (K. R. K.).

Uses : — In the Concan, the juice of the root with cumin and sugar is given in cold milk as a remedy for spermatorrhoea, and the juice of the leaves is applied to parts which have become inflamed from the application of the marking-nut juice. As a Paustik, or restorative and fattening medicine, roasted onions, Gometta root, cumin, sugar and ghi are given, or Gometta only with milk and sugar (Dymock),