Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/584

pale-green or dull-purple, very dark-green within, tube as long as the limb, narrow, ribbed, erect, gradually dilated into the slightly decurved ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, cymbiform limb which terminates in a filiform clavellate tip, sometimes 3in. long. Spadix up to 3in. long, gradually passing into a very narrowly clavate, pale-green, smooth appendage, longer than the inflorescene, with a rounded, sometimes verruculose top. Anthers 3-4-nate, sessile, with a few subulate neuters above them. Ovaries very many, minute, densely crowded. Colour of spathe very variable (Trimen).

Uses : — The roots are employed as a medicine by the Singhalese. (Thwaites.)

Syn. : — Arum sessiliflorum. Roxb. 628.

Vern. :— Loth (Bombay, according to Dymock) ; Bhasamkand (C. P.).

Habitat: — The Punjab ; Upper Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, from Nepal to Simla ascending to 5,000 feet. Found in the Konkan, abundant in Thana. (K. R. K.)

Root tuberous, large, globose. Stem spotted with purple, sheathed at base by membranous spotted scales. Leaf solitary, appearing after the flower stalk, radical, pedately compound. Stalk 12-18in., spotted. Leaflets 9-11, oblong lanceolate, unequal, more or less sessiled at base, very variable in size and shape, the central one 6-13 by l½-4in., outer ones gradually smaller. Spathe 12-24in. green-purple outside, tube3-4in., cylindric or globosed, inflated, margins united, the inner surface speckled purple on yellow ground, the base deeply purple. Limb lanceolate, narrowed into a long linear curved tip, the inside irregularly blotched with purple and white, the margins purple. Spadix prolonged into a tapering, dark-purple appendage, 6-10in. long. Male and Female flowers on the same plant. Female flowers crowded round the base of the spadix, with a few club-shaped neutral organs above them. Ovary obovate; ovules 1-2. Male flowers crowded in a ring 2-3in. above the