Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/725

Rh examined the bark of the Hymenodyctyon excelsum, but must have been dealing with some other bark.

Syn. : — 0. biflora, Lamk., 0. vamosa, Roxb. 142.

Sans. : — Kshetraparpati ; Parpata.

Vern. : — Daman-papar (H.); Khetpapra (B.) ; Paripât (Mar.) ; Popato, Kâzuri (Goa),

Habitat: — An abundant weed throughout India, from the Punjab, Southward and Eastward, to Ceylon and Malacca.

A slender herb up to 1ft. or more high, but often diminutive and straggling. Leaves sessile, l-2in. long, linear or linear-lanceolate, erect, or spreading; margins scabrous and often revolute; stipules short, membranous, dentate or bristly. Peduncles axillary, solitary, slender, shorter than the leaves, usually 2-3-Oowered ; pedicels filiform; bracts, subulate. Calyx- teeth subulate, nearly equalling the tube when in flower. Corolla white, its tube short. Capsule usually broad, didymous or globose or narrowed to the base, not ribbed, the crown not rising above the base of the calyx-teeth.

It is an extremely variable plant, and some of its forms, cannot easily be distinguished from ''0. diffusa'' (Duthie).

Uses : — By Sanskrit authors it is considered a cooling medicine of importance in the treatment of fevers supposed to be caused by deranged air and bile, that is, remittent fever, with gastric irritability and nervous depression. The entire plant is prescribed in decoction, and is combined with aromatics.

In Goa, it is much used combined with Adiantum limatum and Hydrocotyle asiatica as an alterative in. low forms of fever. In the Concan, the juice is applied in burning of the palms of the hand and soles of the feet from fever ; in burning at the pit of the stomach the juice is given internally with a little milk and sugar (dose 1 tola of the juice obtained by pounding the plant with water). The decoction is given in remittent fever, and is also applied to the surface of the body. It is also given internally to cure heat eruptions (Dymock).