48 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
N. 0, MENISPERMACEiE. 
38. Tinospora tomentosa, Miers. h.imj.i., i. 90. 
Veru. : — Padma-guluncha (B). 
Habitat : — Tropical thickets in Bengal ; always rare. 
A climbing shrub. Bark pustular. Shoots tomentose. 
Leaves orbicular-cordate, more or less 3-lobed, pubescent above, 
tomentose beneath, 3-6 in. diam. Petioles as long. Racemes 
usually simple, solitary or fascicled. Flowers fascicled in the 
axils or deciduous bracts. Sepals G. 2-seriate, inner longer, 
membranous. Petals 6, smaller. Male-flowers : Stamens 6, 
filaments free, tips thickened. Anther cells obliquely adnate, 
bursting obliquely. Female- flowers : Staminodes 0, elavate ; 
Ovaries 3. Stigmas forked. Drupes 1-3, dorsally convex, 
veutrally flat ; fusiform, orange-yellow. Endocarp tubercled, 
dorsally keeled, ventrally concave. Seed grooved ventrally or 
curved round the intruded sub-2-lobed endocorp. Albumen 
ventrally ruminate. Cotyledons foliaceous, ovate, spreading. 
Use : — It possesses the tonic properties of the common 
Guluncha, T. cordifolia (Plain’s Flora of the Sunderbans, 
Page 286). 
39. T. crispa, Miers. h. f.b.i., i. 96. 
Syn: — Menispermuui verrucosum. Hm. Rox. FI. lnd. 
Vcrn. : — Titba-Kinda (Sinhalese). 
Habitat : —From Sylhet and Assam to the Eastern Peninsula, 
Ceylon. 
Stem widely climbing and twining, strongly warted. 
Leaves 4-3 in., broadly orbicular-cordate, suddenly acuminate, 
7-veined, glabrous on both sides, thin. Petioles 3 4 in., 
thickened and twisted at base, smooth. Flowers £ in. long, 
green, campauulate, 1-3 together, on very slender pedicels, in 
the axils of fleshy, small persistent bracts, rather distantly arrang- 
ed in slender pendent spicate racemes or panicles 4-6 in. long 
from axils of old leaves. Male-flowers : — stamens adnate to base 
of petals. Female-flowers : — Anthers, square, stamens adnate 
