N. O. LEQUMlNOS.fi. 
495 
glands between each along the hairy rachis. Leaflets 12-15 
pair, minute, puberulous, sessile, j^in. 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, join. long. Pod 2-3in. by £-§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 pudica, Linn ., h.f.b.i., ii. 291, 
Roxb. 423. 
Sans. : — Varahkranta, lajjalu. 
Vern. : — Lajalu (H.); Lajak (B.) ; Lajwanti (Kurnaon); Lajri 
(Mar.); Total-vadi (Tam.). 
Habitat: — Throughout the hotter parts of India, the culti- 
vated and found in the waste lands of the Dun. Flowers in Dfin 
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 
l-IJin. long. Leaves digitate. Pinnae 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, H-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 (Dymook). 
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 
