Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/144

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
894
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.


beneath. Peduncles usually close below the leaves, short. Racemes densely stellately woolly and with needle-like hairs, not prickly. Flowers large, white. Calyx shortly funnel-shaped, shaggy, with long stellate hair, slightly enlarged in fruit ; segments ovate-acute ¼in., not acuminate. Corolla white, large, 1¼in. diam., very hairy outside; lobes ovate-oblong, acute, ¾-1in. long. Ovary hirsute. Berry yellow, globose 1-1½in. diam.; densely clothed with needle-like hairs, ⅛-1/6in. fulvous, spreading. Fruit pedicels ½-1in. . Calyx-lobes in fruit unaltered, hardly ¼ the length of the berry ; base of the Calyx in fruit very densely clothed with long, yellow, bristly hair. Seeds ⅛in. diam., nearly smooth.

Use : — The berries are used medicinally by the natives, but are not considered of much value (Watt).

858. S. indicum, Linn., h.f.b.i., iv. 234; Roxb. 191.

Sans. : — Vrihati.

Vern. : — Barhanta (H.) ; Byâkura (B.) ; Mulli, papparamulli (Tam.) ; Kuk-mâchi (Tel.) ; Cheru-chunta (Mal.) ; Ringani, dorli (Bomb.) ; Kandyari (Panj.).

Habitat : — Very common throughout tropical India.

An erect under shrub, l-6ft., much- branched, very prickly ; prickles compressed, stout, often recurved. Leaves ovate-sinuate or lobed, 3-6 by l-4in., subentire or pinnatifid, stellately woolly beneath, nerves prickly. Petiole 1in. Peduncles short, often extra-axillary, pedicels ¼-½in., stellately woolly. Racemes many-fid. Flowers blue. Calyx lobes in flower 1/6in., triangular, acute, very woolly, unarmed or with slender, straight spines, Corolla ¾-1in., broadly triangular, tomentose without. Ovary usually glabrous ; style stellately pubescent. Berry yellow, ⅓in. diam., globose, much exceeding the woolly, patent, triangular, oblong Calyx lobes; prickles of the lobes often strengthened in fruit. Seeds ⅛in. diam. and upwards, smooth or very nearly so.

Parts used : — The root ; leaves.

Uses.:—" The root constitutes an igredient of Dasamula,