Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/309

Syn. : — A. frumentaceus, Ham. Roxb. 663. A. Anacardana, Ham. A. farinaceus, Roxb.

Vern. :— Chuko, Bathu (B.) ; Rajagaro (Guz.); Rájgira (Dec); Táj-e-khurus ; Bustan afroz (Persian) ; Chúa mársa, ganhar. (EL); Kahola-bháji (Bomb)

Habitat : — Cultivated throughout India and up to 9,000 ft, in the Himalayas.

A tall robust annual. Stem 4-5ft., striate, sometimes thicker than the thumb, glabrous or puberulous. Leaves 2-6 by l-3in., elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, acute or finely acuminate, base cuneate, petiole as long as the leaf. Spikes sub-erect, red, green or yellow, in dense thyrses squarrose from the long curved bracts, centre one longest. Bracts acicular, recurved, very much longer than the oblong-lanceolate acuminate sepals. Sepals 5. Stamens 5. Utricle circumciss, top 2-3 fid. Seeds 1/20in. diam., yellowish white or pitchy black with a narrow thin border.

Uses :— Used for purifying the blood and in piles, and as a diuretic in strangury. (Baden-Powell.) Used in scrofula and as a local application for scrofulous sores ; administered in the form of a liquid. (Watt.)

Sir George Watt, in his Comml. Prod. Ind. (pp. 63-64), writes —

It is one of the most important sources of Food with the hill tribes of India, and there are both golden-yellow and bright purple conditions. The former is more frequent and seems therefore to be preferred ; most fields, however, contain a few red plants among the yellow. It is an exceedingly ornamental crop : the hillsides on account of the fields of this plant, become in autumn literally golden-yellow and purple."

" The grain has been analysed by Church (Food-Grains of Ind., 107-9) and the average of three samples gave the nutrient ratio at 1 : 5-3 and the nutrient value 90. It has been estimated that one plant will produce 100,000 grains. Speaking of another sample, which Church attributed to A. gangeticus, but which may possibly have been one of them any forms of the present species, he remarks : " The analysis shows that we have in these seeds a food in which the proportions, not merely of albuminoids of total starch plus the starch-equivalent of the oil, but also of the oil itself, are very nearly those of an ideal or standard ratio." Visitors to the hills of India are inclined to smile at people who live very largely upon these minute grains, but they might with advantage to themselves use this extremely wholesome article of diet.