Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/585

female. Berries scarlet, 1-seeded, in a globose head, more or less enveloped in the withered base of the spathe. Flowers when mature smell of carrion. (Collett.) Of late years the tubers have been sold by most of the bulb growers in England under the name of " Monarch of the East." They are advertised to grow in a warm room, " without water or soil." (B.D.B.)

Uses : — The tubers, which are like small potatoes, are used as a stimulating poultice ; they are very acrid." (Dymock.)

Syn :— Typhonium orixenze, Schott. Arum orixense, Roxb. 627.

Vern. : — Ghit-kochu (Beng.) ; Karunaik-kizhangu (Tam.); Kanda-gadda (Tel.) ; Chena (Mal.)

Habitat : — Lower Bengal, Burma, the Eastern and Western Peninsula. Ceylon, where it is common in damp places, in moist low country. Often a troublesome weed in cultivated ground, says Trimen.

Tuberous monœoious herb, Stem 0. Tuber sub-globose, about lin. diam. Leaves long petioled, hastately 3-lobed, with a truncate or cordate or 2-lobed base, the lobes broad or narrow, sinus sometimes very deep and narrow, or 3-partite, with segments 5-7in. long, the central broadly ovate, acuminate, lateral smaller. Petiole 6-12in. Spathe 3-8in. Peduncle l-4in., tube oblong or pyriform, much, shorter than the broadly ovate, caudate acuminate, expanded limb, which is dull red-purple within, paler externally, with undefined green stripes; spadix 2-4in., sessile, erect, male inflorescence cylindric, female very short, surmounted by a dense mass of filiform tortuous neuters, ½in. long, interspace between the neuters and male inflorescence naked ; appendage shortly stipitate, slender, striate, acute or obtuse, red, base truncate ; anthers minute ; ovaries crowded in a hemispheric mass, stigma pulvinate. (Trimen.)

Uses : — The roots are exceedingly acrid, and used in poultices ; and also applied externally to the bite of venomous