AROWEM. 513 



SCINDAPSUS OFFICINALIS, Schott 



Yig,-^WigJit, Icon., t. 781. 



Hab. — Bengal. The fruit. 



Vernacular, — Gaj-pipli, Bari-pipli (ffm(^,)^ Gaja-pipal ( Bcng.)^ 

 Atti-tippili (Tflrwz., MciL)^ Enuga-pippallu {ThL)^ Dodda-hipalli 

 [Caii.)^ Thora-pimpali [Mar.)^ Motho-pimpali {Gaz.). 



History, Uses, &C. — The ripe fruit of this plant is the 

 true Gaja-pippali of the Nighantas ; it also hears the Sanskrit 

 names of Kari-pippali, Kapi-valli, Kota-valli, Shreyasi, and 

 Vashira. It is descrihed as aromatic, carminative, stimulant^ 

 and useful in diarrhoea, asthma, and other affections supposed 

 to he caused hy deranged phlegm. In practice it is generally 

 used as an adjunct to other medicines. S. officinalis is cultivated 

 in Bengal, chiefly in the Midnapore district, and the fruits, cut 

 into transverse pieces and dried, form the Gaja-pipal of the 

 druggists of Eastern and Southern India. 



In Northern and Western India an entirely different drug is 

 sold under the same name ; it consists of the entire plant of 

 a Balanophora often remaining attached to a small piece of the 

 ^ead stick upon which it grew. The largest of these plants 

 arc ahout five inches in length, and consist of a kind of cellular 

 cnp, from which springs a scaly spadix surmounted hy a glan- 

 dular-shaped club of imperfect flowers, beneath which the stem 

 is marked by little pits showing the places where the ^female 

 flowers were attached. This drug is mucilaginous and astringent, 

 aiid is no doubt improperly substituted for the genuine article. 

 Description.— The fruit of )5.oj^ei;2a//5 occurs in slices 



an inch or less in diameter and about \ inch in thickness, of a 

 gi'eyish colour and almost inodorous. The slices consist of a 

 central core surrounded by the seeds partly enclosed in the dried 

 P^lp of the arils ; when soaked in water they swell up and 

 ^f ten, and the core may be seen to contain numerous large liber 

 cells very sharply pointed at both ends which act like stinging 

 bairs. The pulp surrounding the seeds is full of needle-liko 

 crystals of oxalate of lime, similar to those found in the acrid 



