Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/209

Rh portion. Filaments hairy downwards. Pistil glabrous. Capsule ¾ by ½ in. Seeds more than ⅓ in. long, thin, obovate acute, densely shaggy with white adpressed inelastic hairs, except on the large oblong areoles. (C. B. Clarke;.

The flower spikes resemble hops in shape and size, and are covered with a visid resinous exudation called Mel having a musky and resinous odour (Dymock).

Uses : — The plant has a strong aromatic odor and is much used in domestic medicine by the country -people of the regions where it occurs The bark, with an equal proportion of that of Calophyllum inophyllum, is applied as a fomentation in tenesmus. The juice of the bark, with an equal quantity of that of Eclipta alba, boiled down to one-half and mixed with old Sesamum oil, a few pepper corns and ginger, is heated and used as an external application in parotitis, and equal quantities of the juice of the flowers and of those of Randia dumetorum are smeared over bruises (Dymock).

Another species, named, Strobilanthes ciliatus, Nees. H.F.B.I., iv. 439. is also used for the same purposes.

Vern. :— Gada-kalha ; Harnapakor (Santali).

Habitat: — Behar, Central India, from Jubbulpore to Chutia Nagpur.

An underwood or small shrub, 2-6ft. Branches many, devaricate, often zigzag, quadrangular, glabrous, tips more or less hairy. Leaves variable, very often unequal, in the same pair, minutely hairy beneath. Spikes linear oblong, closely velvety, mostly terminal, solitary, 3½ by ½in, quasipeduncled. Bracts soft, membranous, broader than long, ¼-⅓in., very obtuse, apex often recurved in fruit, persistent, with aromatic glandular hair. Calyx divided nearly to the base, velvety, ¼-⅓in., unequal, linear obtuse. Corolla bluish-purple, lin., curved, very slightly hairy, narrow, cylindric base very much shorter than the ventric part, limb slightly 2-lipped. Stamens and pistil very nearly glabrous. Capsule ⅓in., glabrous, 4-seeded. Seeds scarcely 1/12in., thin, orbicular, elastically white — hairy; areoles very small.