Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/529

The resin was soluble in spirit and alkaline solutions, and gave a fine red colour with strong sulphuric acid. The tannin gave a green colour with ferric salts, and when determined separately amounted to 4-15 per cent, of the root. Oxalate of calcium was present.— (Phartmacogra. Ind. III. 465.)

Syn. :— C. toxicarium, Roxb. 285.

Sans. : — Vishamandala.

Vern. : — Chindar, kanwal, pindar, kanmu (H.) ; Nagdamani (Guz.) ; Nágdavana (Mar.) ; Naginka-patta (Dec.) ; Bara-kanur, Nag-daun. bodakanod (Beng.); Vishamungil (Tam.) ; Kesar-chettu, visha mungali, lakshminárayanachettu (Tel.)

Habitat : — Cultivated in Indian gardens.

Herbs with large coated bulbs. Bulbs 2-3in. diam., narrowed into a neck, 3-12in. high, which is clothed with old leaf-sheaths. Roots from the short root-stock or base of the bulb numerous, vermiform. Leaves 3-5ft. by 5-8in., linear-lanceolate, shortly acuminate, flat, narrowed into the sheathing base, coriaceous, bright-green ; margins smooth. Scape from the axils of the old leaves 1½-3ft. up to lin. diam., compressed, solid, stout ; bracts 2, spathiform, 3-4in., long, oblong, acute, papery ; bracteoles filiform. Umbel 10-50-fid, somewhat bipartite, with a tuft of bracteoles in the sinus; pedicels ¼-lin. Perianth salver-shaped ; perianth tube 3-4in., cylindric, slender, green ; segments rather shorter, linear, recurved or revolute ; filament very slender, free, spreading, green, shorter than the perianth segments ; anthers reddish, ½-¾in. Flowers fragrant at night. Fruit rarely produced, subglobose, l-2in. diam., 1-rarely 2-seeded, beaked by the fleshy base of the perianth, dehiscing irregularly. (Trimen).

Uses : — The fresh root is officinal in the Pharmacopoeia of India and said to be an " emetic, in small doses nauseant, and diaphoretic, analogous to squill."

[The dried sliced roots are also an efficient emetic, but require to be given in double the dose of the recent article. Sir W. O'Shaughnessy remarks (Bengal Disp., p. 656) that this is the only indigenous and abundant emetic plant, of which he