Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/559

Syn. :— Tradescantia axillaris, Linn. 116.

Vern. :— Nirpulli Tam.) ; Soltraj, baghanulla (H.) ; Itsaka (Bomb.); Golagandi (Tel.).

Habitat : — Throughout India, in the plains, from the Upper Gangetic Valley to Assam, Ceylon low country.

Annual herbs, with stems 6 18in., stout or slender, elongate, glabrous or sparsely hairy, diffusely branched, leafy. Branches sub-erect and creeping below or prostrate; internodes l-3in.; roots fibrous. Leaves sessile, 2-6 by 1/6-⅓in., narrowly linear or linear-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, flat, glabrous or hairy ; sheath ¼-⅓in., mouth ciliate. Cymes reduced to axillary fascicles of flowers, with the small, linear or linear-lanceolate bracteoles, almost concealed in the leaf sheaths. Flowers bright-violet-blue. Sepal ⅓in., spathulately lanceolate, acuminate, sparingly hairy. Corolla petal long-clawed ; tube ⅓in. long ; lobes small, rounded ; filaments fusiform below the tip. Style bearded, glabrous. Capsule 1/5-¼in. long, shortly stipilate, long-beaked, quite glabrous ; beak half as long as the body. Seeds large, up to 1/10in. long, oblong, compressed or ventrally concave, brown, shining, cancellate, with shallow pits.

Uses : — On the Malabar Coast, this is viewed as a useful remedy in tympanites. (Rheede). It was one of the plants brought to Dr. Buchanan Hamilton while in Behar, as a useful medicine for external application in cases of ascites, especially when mixed with a little oil. (Ainslie.)

Lyon found the seeds to have the following percentage composition : Water 10.29, fat 0.62, albuminoids 15.99, carbohydrates 24.79, cellulose 9.36, ash 8.89. The nitrogen was estimated at 11.28 grains per oz., and the nutritive caroon at 145.80 per oz. He calculates the nutritive value of the seeds as compared with the average cereal at 100.00 to be 85.76. (Pharmacogr. Ind., III. 510.)

Habitat : — Throughout India, chiefly near the coast, from the Sunderbuns and Chittagong to Ceylon and Singapore.