Indian Medicinal Plants/Natural Order Hæmodoraceæ

Syn.—S. Zeylanica Willd. Roxb. 294.

Habitat: — Coromandel coast. "I suspect that it is the only species indigenous to India and is confined to the Western Peninsula and Ceylon, wild or cultivated." (J. D. Hooker, in Fl. Br. I. vi. 271.)

Sans. : — Mûrva.

Vern. : — Murahri, Marul (H. ); Murba, Gorachakra (B.) ; Ghanasphan, Marvel (M.) ; Murvel (Guz.) ; Marût Kalang (Tam.) ; Ishaura-koda-udr (Tel.) ; Katu-kapel (Mal.) ; Heggurutike (Kan.).

Root-stock very stout, branching stoloniferous ; stem very short ; leaves about 8 or 9in. a tuft, 2⅓-3ft. by lin. towards the middle, sub-erect, dagger-shaped, rigid, pale-green, with transverse bands of dark green, concave above, and striate, dorsally rounded, ¼in. thick from back to front, margins thin, reddish, terminated by a terete, acute, rigid, spiniform, green tip, l-2in. long. Scape a foot long, cylindric, green or pale-purple, with a few linear, acuminate bracts, l-2in., long. Raceme l-2ft. long by l½-2in. diam., striate, erect, cylindric. Flowers in fascicles of 3-6, sub-erect, very shortly pedicelled, sweet-scented ; bracts very minute, ovate, acute, pale-green ; perianth pale, greenish-white tinged with violet, tube ½in., long, cylindric, lobes about as long as the tube, linear-oblong, obtuse, revolute ; tips purplish ; stamens erect ; filaments as long as the perianth lobes ; anthers oblong, versatile, ovary trigonous, 3-lobed, lobes pitted at the top ; style fliform, exserted ; stigma minute. Fruit sparingly produced, globose, ⅓in. diam., of one ​fertile cell, with 2 minute imperfect cells at the base, dark- orange colour. Seed solitary, broadly ovoid, white; albumin horny.

Uses: — It is described as purgative, heavy, sweet, pungent, tonic, and cardiacal ; a remedy for bile, heat of blood, gonorrhœa, tridosha (a corruption of the three humors), thirst, heart disease, itch, leprosy, fever, rheumatism, and glandular enlargements.

Ainslie (Mat. Ind. ii) remarks—

" This fleshy creeping root is, in a slight degree, warm to the taste, and of a not unpleasant odour; and is prescribed, by the native practitioners, in the form of an electuary, in consumptive complaints and coughs of long standing, to the quantity of a small tea-spoonful twice daily. The juice of the tender shoots of the plants they administer to children to clear their throats of viscid phlegm. The plant is cultivated in great abundance at Cumbum, and on the Vursenand Mountains in the Dindigul district." (Pharmacogr. Ind. Vol. III., p. 493.)

​PLATE No. 953.

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