Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/634

eruptions, leaves emenagogue, and the tabashir is useful in paralysis and flatulence. (Balfour's Cyclopedia Vol. I., 261.)

" Tabashir is a cooling medicine, generally given in fever to assuage thirst, also expectorant." (Barren, Bhuj, " Used as a medicinal ingredient in cases of diarrhœa, dysentery, &c." (Mr. Darrah, Assam.)

Syn. :— Bambusa stricta, Roxb. 193.

Vern. : — Bans ; bans kaban ; bans khurd ; kopar (H.) ; Karail (B.) ; Mathan ; saring ; burumat (Kol) ; Halpa ; veddar ; vadur (Gond) ; Bas ; udha (Bomb.) ; Bhovarlit (Mar) ; Kanka ; Sâdhanapu vendaru (Tel.).

Habitat : — Throughout India.

Arborescent unarmed Bamboos with densely branching root-stocks. Stems 10-50 ft. by 1-3 in. diam, hollow in most climates solid in dry, young glancous green old yellowish nodes swollen lower often rooting, internodes 12-18 in. upper branches decurved. Stem sheathes variable lower 3-12 in. glabrous or strigose with yellow brown pairs, striate top rounded ciliate, slightly auricled blade triangular hairy especially within ligule narrow. Leaves deciduous narrowed from the rounded petioled base to the twisted tip, midrib prominent nerves 3-6 pair with interposed pellucid glauds. Sheath striate hairy callus prominent auricle shirt ciliate with flexuous deciduous hairs ; ligule narrow, serrate. Pancile large leads dense, 1-1½ in. much smaller M.S. forms. Rachis smooth inter-nodes 1½-2 in. Spikelets usually hairy, ovary stipitates turbinate style long stegma simple, feathers Grain broadly ovoid shinong beaked hairy above.

Uses : — The silicious matter found near the joints is officinal, and used as a cooling, tonic and astringent medicine. The leaves are given to animals during parturition, from a supposition that they cause a more rapid expulsion of the placenta.