VALUE OF THE PLANT PANG ALA. 451 



as a styptic, and the leaves when bruised are in general use in the 

 Concan as an application to wounds and sores. It is a stout, erect, 

 branched, shrubby plant ; glabrous, pubescent, or scaberulous. 

 Leaves long-pctioled, ovate or ovate -lanceolate, singly or doubly 

 crenate-toothed or serrate, base cuneate, whorls subglobose, in dense 

 cylindric or one-sided softly hairy spikes, bracts elliptic-ovate, 

 exceeding the hirsute calyx, calyx-teeth short, triangular-lanceolate, 

 riliate. Nutlets very small, black, shining. The whole plant has a 

 strong disagreeable black currant odour. Roots woody, knotted ; bark 

 light brown, scabrous, with an odour like that of the plant, and a 

 pungent taste, benumbing the tongue and palate when chewed. 



The Marathi name TfiRr (pangala), <Tfipr (pangula), or ffrpr 

 (pingula), which also signifies the offensive smelling brown tree-bug, 

 appears to have been given to it on account of its pungent odour. 



In the Ratnagiri district of Western India the root has long been 

 in use amongst the natives as a secret remedy for the bite of the 

 Phursa snake, and in February, 1871, Mr. H. B. Boswell, the 

 Collector, addressed the Civil Surgeon in the following terms:— 

 " I have the honour to send you a specimen of a root which I have 

 reason to believe to be a cure for the bite of the Phursa snake, and I 

 shall feel very much obliged to you if }r u can in any way ascertain 

 its medicinal properties and its effect on any one so bitten. 



" It is said to stop all the after ill-effects of this poisonous bite, 

 which is more than Liquor ammonias will, I believe, often do. The 

 patient is to eat as much of it, after it has been washed, as would 

 make in bulk the size of the first joint of one's first finger. This he 

 is to do three times a day for seven days. It is also to be applied 

 externally to the wound. I cannot, of course, vouch for the truth 

 of this, or the efficacy of the cure, but one of my sepoys, who was 

 bitten by a Phursa a week ago, has been doctored by the Patel 

 (village headman) of this place,. in this manner, and is now appar- 

 ently well. The Patel, after much persuasion, has shewn me the root 

 and the plant, one I know well, but the name of which I am not at 

 liberty at present to mention. He also assures me that this is all 

 he uses." 



The plant was forwarded in April 1871 to the Chemical Analyser 

 to Government, who identified it as species of Peri/la, and expressed 



