OL eV eae ee ee 
PAM ae ee Tee NE ee 
_ but a quarter of the price 
| LEGUMINOSZ. 531 
- Hab.—Punjab, Sind, W. Peninsula. The herb. 
Vernacular.—Surati-sonamukhi (Guz.), Bhui-tarwar (Mar.), 
Nilavagai (Tam.) 
Description, Uses, &c.—This plant is the C. obtusa 
of Roxburgh. It is very common in many parts of India, but 
is not cultivated. The whole plant in seed is sometimes offered 
for sale in the bazar as country senna, in contradistinction to 
- the senna which is in general use, and which was formerly 
imported from Arabia. C. obovata is perennial, herbaceous, 
and diffuse ; leaflets 4 to 6 pair, obovate obtuse, mucronate, 
glabrous; racemes axillary, few flowered; much shorter than 
the leaves ; legumes lunate, broad, thin, obtuse; valves crested 
at the seeds. It is used as a substitute for the official Senna, 
and is also in Southern India applied to cure psoriasis and 
pityriasis, The following notice of it occurs in the Pharma- 
cographia :—‘ This species was the first known to botanists, 
and was cultivated in Italy for medicinal use during the first 
a half of the 16th century. Hence the term Italian senna used 
Tt is more widely distributed in the 
Nile region than the other Species, and is also found in India, 
and (naturalized) in the West Indies. lts leaflets (also pods) 
may occasionally be picked out of Alexandrian senna. It is 
called by the Arabs senna baladi (wild senna), and grows in 
the fields of durra (Sorghum) at Karnak and Luxor, and in the 
time of Nectoux was held in such small esteem that it fetched 
of the senna jebeli brought by the 
e Bisharrin Arabs. It is not now 
by Gerarde and others. 
caravans of Nubia and th 
collected.”” 
Being very abundant in In 
useful as a substitute for officinal § 
the season itis frequently found mixe 
and is known in South India as the 
on.—See Cassia angustifolia. 
d medicinally in India are 
which has purgative pro- 
dia it might occasionally be found 
enna. In the earlier part of 
d with the Tinnevelly senna, 
plunt leaf or jungle senna. — 
Chemical composition 
Other allied plants sometimes use 
Cynometra ramiflora, Linn, 
