Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/604

falcately incurved, anthers small. Nut obovoid or oblong, apiculate pale red-brown, style longer or shorter than the nut. Flowers all the year round. The wings of the two upper glumes sometimes undeveloped, but the keel is always spinulose, and the species may always be recognized by their glumes having their tips narrowed with long cusps. (Trimen.)

Uses : — The two above-mentioned plants are the Nirvisha of Sanskrit medical writers, who describe them as antidotal to certain poisons. Rheede describes K. triceps and K. monocephala as having similar properties, and states that the former plant is called Coquinha by the Portuguese. In Malabar, a deccction of the roots is used to relieve thirst in fevers and diabetes, and oil boiled with the roots to relieve pruritus of the skin. He also states that they distil an oil from the roots, which is of a dark yellowish-green colour, pleasant odour and pungent taste, and which is used for the same purposes as the decoction and to promote the action of the liver.

Irving states that K. monocephala is used at Ajmere as an antidote like zedoary, and Roxburgh notices its use as an antidote in Bengal. These plants have the odour, and apparently all the qualities, of Cyperus rotundus.

Syn. :— Cyperus inundatus, Roxb. 68.

Vern. :— Pati (B. & H.).

Habitat : —In abundance on the low banks of the Ganges and near Calcutta. Bengal, from Sylhet to the Sea.

A stout perennial. Root jointed, creeping, stoloniferous. Stem 2-4ft. high, about as thick as the finger, triquetrous. Leaves numerous, radical surrounding the base of stem, most deeply channelled on the inside, and keeled on the back. Rhachis of spike glabrous, l-2in. universal involucre compound of 4-5 leaves of very unequal lengths, the largest being 2ft. or more long, and the shortest as many inches ; partial involucre subulate. Umbel decompound, erect, about a span long.