980 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Habitat: -Cultivated in gardens throughout India and 

 Malaya; where wild, uncertain. 



A large elegant, ramous shrub, common in gardens, and one 

 of our finest ornaments. I never saw it wild ; it is in flower most 

 part of the year. Leaves opposite, short-petioled, ovate-lanceolate, 

 smooth pointed, generally variegated with large white spots, 

 though sometimes of a uniform green, and we have a variety 

 with the leaves uniformly ferruginous. Racemes terminal, short, 

 erect, smooth. Flowers large, generally of a beautiful crimson 

 colour. Bracts opposite ; below three or four-flowered ; above 

 one-flowered. Corolla throat compressed, divisions of the border 

 soon after they expand becoming spirally revolute, with their 

 inside wrinkled, and beautifully ornamented with small chrys- 

 talline specks (Roxburgh). 



Uses : — In the Konkan, it is used in the same manner as 

 Adhatoda Vasica, Nees. According to Rumphius, the variegated 

 variety is used pounded with the milk of the cocoanut to reduce 

 swelling. Loureirs states that the leaves are emollient and 

 resolvent, and notices their use as a cataplasm to inflamed 

 breasts caused by obstruction to the flow of milk (Dymock). 



939. Rungia reopens, Nees., h.f.b.i., iv. 549. 



Syn. : — Justicia repens, Linn., Roxb. 44. 



Vern. : — Kodaga saleh (Tam.) ; Ghatipitpapada (Bomb.). 



Habitat : — Common throughout India, from the Punjab and 

 Bengal to Ceylon. 



A procumbent herb, rooting, ramous weed, says Clarke. 

 Stems usually decumbent, says Triman, and rooting at the base, 

 thin, erect, slender, cylindric puberulous. Branches quadran- 

 gular, pubescent or nearly glabrous. Leaves oblong or lanceolate- 

 linear, l-2in., on very short petiole, acute at base, subacute at 

 apex, entire glabrous, densely lineolate above (so as to be rough 

 when dried). Spikes long, lf-oin., 4-sided, erect, terminal. 

 Bracts much imbricated, all similar, nearly i'm., broadly-oval, 

 obtuse, sharply mucronate, pubescent, very slightly ciliate, 



