Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/322

Habitat : — Temperate Himalaya, from Kashmir and Hazara to Bhutan.

A nearly glabrous, erect herb. Stems 3-5ft., robust, succulent. Leaves alternate, broadly lanceolate, 6-10in., entire long-pointed, narrowed into a short stalk ; stipules none. Flowers ⅓in. diam., pale-green, 2-sexual, in leaf opposed, cylindrical ; racemes 2-6in., long ; bracts linear. Perianth 5, nearly separate segments. Stamens 8-10, filaments united at the base ; anthers 2-celled, soon falling off. Ovary composed of 6-8 carpels arranged in a whorl, each with a short recurved stigma. Fruit dark-purple, succulent, crowded in an erect, thick raceme, 4-8in. long ; carpels separating when ripe, each containing a single black shining kidney-shaped seed.

Uses : — The natives do not appear to use any part of the plant as a medicine, but in every district in which it is cultivated they seem to be fully aware of its power of producing delirium. It is commonly stated that the poisonous property is only destroyed by complete boiling. The narcotic virtues of certain American species are well-known, and it is possible that the Indian plant may be equally valuable. (Watt).

Vern. : — Balanja, berwaja, tatuke (Trans-Indus); Phok, phog, phogalli (flowers) ; tirni (root) (Pb. and Sind).

Habitat: — Punjab, Sind and Rajputana.

An almost leafless shrub or small tree with terete pale flexuous branches and very slender branchlets. Leaves most minute, bristles at the distant nodes. Flowering branches about as thick as a crow-quill or less; internodes 1-1½in. long. Pedicels ⅛-1/6in., sepals 5, flat, about as long. Stamens 12-18. Ovary 4-angled. Fruit ½-lin diam., a nut, 4-angled, oblong, hard, densely clothed with many series of branching intricate, rigid, red-brown flexuous bristles ; seed about ¼in.