808 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
the stout midrib ; veins reticulate. Petiole £in. Pedicels short, 
clothed with ovate acute imbricating bracts. Calyx I'oin., long, 
glabrous outside ; lobes ovate, acute, margins eiliate. Corolla 
|-in. diam., rotate, green without, purple within, tube very short, 
lobes fleshy, ovate-oblong, acuminate, valvate. Follicles 4-5in. 
Seeds sin., ovate-oblong, flattened, black ; coma liu., pure 
white. 
Parts used : — The root ; juice. 
Uses : — In the more southern parts of the Concan, the milky 
juice is dropped into inflamed eyes ; it causes copious lachry- 
mation, and afterwards a sensation of coolness in the part. The 
root is tied up in plantain leaves and roasted in hot 
ashes ; it is then beaten into a mass with cumin and sugar- and 
administered with glii as a remedy in heat or inflammation of 
the urinary passages. As a lep, the root is applied to swellings 
( Dymock). 
The root is prescribed usually in the form of syrup. Some- 
times the whole plant is pounded and a congee made with rice, 
or an infusion prepared of the dried leaves (Watt). 
Roots are officinal in the Indian Pharmacopoeia, and are 
used as a substitute for sarsaparillla. “They are said to be 
sweet, demulcent, alterative, diaphoretic, diuretic and tonic. 
Useful in loss of appetite, disinclination for food, fever, skin 
diseases, syphilis and leucorrluea ” (Dutt’s Materia Medica). 
“ In chronic cough and diarrhoea, the hot infusion with milk 
and sugar acts as an alterative and tonic, specially in children’" 
(Dr. R. L. Dutt in Watt’s Dictionary). 
The aroma aucl taste of the drug is due to the presence of coumarin 
Which can be obtained in part by boiling the root with water. Crystals of 
coumarin can be prepared from the residue after distillatian by drying and 
extracting with alcohol. This is noxtoubt the substance obtained by Garden 
in 1837 and called smilasperic acid, and subsequently by Scott in 1848, who 
described it as a crystalline stearopten. 
(Pharmacographic Indica, Vol. II. p. 448). 
769 . Periplocci aphylla, Dene, h.f.b.i., iv. 12 . 
Vern. : — Bdta, barri, barrara (Pb.) ; Shabbi, barrarra (Pushtu); 
Hum, huma (Afg.) ; Urn, nuna (Bel.) ; Buraye (Sind.). 
