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Use : —The leaves are used in infusion by the Vaidyas in Southern India as a remedy for headache. (Ainslie.)

When soaked in water the seeds immediately become thickly coated with a semi-opaque mucilage ; the kernel is oily and has a sweet nutty taste ; the seeds are used medicinally on account of the mucilage which they afford. (Pharmacogr. Ind. III. 265.)

Sans. : — Tâmra-Valli.

Vern. : — Hazar munee (B. and H.);Yerra userekee (Tel.) ; Lâl-bhuin-ânvalah (H. ) ; Badar-zhapni (Santal) ; Shirappunelli (Tam.) ; Chiru-kizhukânelli, chukanna-kizhânelli (Mal.).

Habitat : — Throughout India, from the Punjab to Assam and Ceylon.

An annual low or tall, diffusely branched, erect or decumbent herb (becoming perennial in some soils), slender, glabrous. Leaf-bearing branchlets short, flattened or shortly winged, often tinged with red. Leaves numerous, closely placed, distichously imbricate, nearly sessile, small ¼-⅓in., oblong, rounded at base, apiculate, paler or silvery beneath. Stipules peltate, very acute. Flowers yellowish, all the year round, numerous, very minute, nearly sessile, solitary. Sepals green, ciliolate, those of the male's sub-orbicular ; of the females oblong, not enlarged in fruit. Fruit very small, scarcely ⅛in., depressed globose, scarcely lobed, muriculate or echinate. Seeds transversely furrowed. Styles with hooked arms. Filaments very shortly united. Anthers erect, didymous, not apiculate.

Use : — Medicinal properties similar to those of P. Niruri.

In Chutia Nagpur, the root is believed to be sudorific, being given to sleepless children along with Zornia diphylla. (Campbell.)

Vern. :— Tandî meral (Santal); Bhuiâvalî (Mar.); Uchchi usirika (Tel.).