60 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
at ends of brandies of long-stalked, axillary umbels ; bracts 
subulate. Male flowers Sepals nearly equal, obovate, obtuse ; 
petals much shorter, staminal column short, summit expanded. 
Female flowers Sepals acute ; petals shorter, styles subulate. 
Fruit scarlet, solitary, sessile, small, £ in., compressed, 
glabrous. Endocarp strongly tubercled on back and sides. 
Seed curved almost into a ring. 
The head of fruit looks as if it were the produce of a single 
flower, instead of an umbel of several sessile ones (Trimen). 
Use : — The root is regarded as light, bitter, astringent and 
useful in fever, diarrhoea, urinary diseases, dyspepsia, etc. 
Sir W. O’Shanghnessy speaks highly of this plant. 
47 . S. rotundifolia, Lour, h.f.b.i., I. 103 . 
Vern. : — Purha (Dehra Dun). 
Habitat : — Tropical and temperate Himalaya, from Sindh east- 
ward to the Khasia* Hills and Pegu. Valleys below Simla ; in 
the ravines of Dun and the Lower Hills. Southern Hills of the 
Western Peninsula. Siam, Cochin-China. 
A tuberous-rooted, large, climbing shrub. Roots subglobose. 
“ Wood soft, spongy, with large, loose pith arranged in wedges, 
separated by broad medullary rays, and concentrically by a belt 
of soft similar tissue. The bark gives fibre, sometimes used for 
fishing lines.” (Gamble). Branchlets glabrous. Leaves peltate, 
with 9-10 radiating nerves, ovato-rotundate, broad-ovate or sub- 
orbicular, often repand or sinuate-lobed, glabrous, 3-7 in. diam., 
obtuse, acute or acuminate, pale beneath. Petiole 3-9 in. 
Peduncle variable, usually slender ; of the females, stout. 
Umbels axillary, compound, in lax cymes ; rays of umbels long 
or stout ; bracts subulate. Flowers, yellow or yellowish-green, 
■g-i in. diam. Sepals narrow; cuneate, puberulous. Petals 
shorter. Drupes red, pisiform. Endocarp horse-shoe-shaped, 
sides excavated. Cotyledons elongate, flat, scarcely broader than 
the radicle. 
Part used : — The root. 
Use : — Roxburgh states that the acrid root is used medicinally 
in Sylhet, presumably for the same purpose as S. hernandifolia, 
W-alp. 
