N. O. LEGUMIN0S2E. 495 



glands between each along the hairy rachis. Leaflets 12-15 

 pair, minute, puberulous, sessile, tcjin. long, linear-oblique, 

 closely set, acute at the apex. Flowers crowded, in short, dense 

 axillary spikes, the upper flowers of each spike bisexual, yellow, 

 the lower sterile, white or purple, with long filiform staminodes, 

 Jin. long. Calyx, minute, membranous. Corolla 3 times as 

 long as the Calyx, xoi n - long. Pod 2-3in. by i-§in., dark- 

 brown ; irregularly twisted, 6-10 seeded ; seeds obovoid, com- 

 pressed, glabrous, indehiscent, opening irregularly. 



Use : — The young shoots are bruised and applied to the 

 eyes in cases of ophthalmia (Ainslie). 



442. Mimosa pudiea, Linn., h.f.b.l, ii. 291, 

 Roxb. 423. 



Sans. : — Varahkranta, lajjalu. 



Vern. :— Lajalu (H.) ; Lajak (B.) ; Lajwanti (Kumaon) ; Lajri 

 (Mar.) ; Total-vadi (Tarn.). 



Habitat : — Throughout the hotter parts of India, the culti- 

 vated and found in the waste lands of the Dun. Flowers in Dun 

 in August and September. Fruits in November and December. 



Sensitive shrubby herb, with stem and rachis copiously 

 bristly and prickly. The copious bristly hairs of the branchlets 

 and petioles deflexed, those of the leaf rachis ascending. Rachis 

 1-1 Jin. long. Leaves digitate. Pinme of the leaves 3-4, nearly 

 sessile, 2-3in. long ; leaflets 24-40, glabrous, sub-coriaceous. 

 Flowers in small, peduncled, bright-pink heads all down the 

 branches, 1-2 from each axil. Pod small, f i-in. long ; sensitive, 

 with very abundant straw-coloured weak prickles from both 

 sutures, as long as the breadth of the pod. Flowers and fruits 

 all through the year in garden, when cultivated. 



Use : — Mir Mahommed Husain (the author of the Makhzan) 

 tells us that it is much valued as a medicine by the Indians, 

 and is considered to be resolvent alterative, and useful in 

 diseases arising from corrupted blood and bile. The juice is 

 also applied externally to fistulous sores (Dymock). 



A decoction of the root of this plant is considered on the 

 Malabar Coast to be useful in gravellish complaints. The Vy- 

 tians of the Coromandel side of India, prescribe the leaves and 



