1062 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
softly pubescent both sides. Flowers in robust woolly pubescent 
spikes upto 1 8 i n . long, numerous, stiffly reflexed against rachis, 
densely crowded. Bracts short, reflexed, ovate, membranous, 
with a long very acute point ; bractlets very sharply spinescent 
(very hard in fruit), with a broad membranous wing at base. 
Perianth-leaves about £in., oblong-oval, acute, glabrous and 
shining, with a narrow white membranous margin. Stamens 5, 
staminodes, large, truncate, fimbriate. Fruit very small, oblong 
cylindrical, truncate, nearly smooth, brown, enclosed in a hard 
perianth. 
A very common weed throughout the Tropics in India, 
Ceylon, in waste land and in grass. Trimen observes that the 
perianth containing the fruit disarticulates from the rachis 
above the bract carrying away with it the spinescent bractlets 
by which it becomes attached to other objects and is transport- 
ed. Flowers greenish white. 
Uses : — It possesses valuable medicinal properties as a 
pungent and laxative, and is considered useful in dropsy, 
piles, boils, eruptions of the skin, etc. The seeds and leaves 
are considered emetic, and are useful in hydrophobia and 
snake-bites. (T. N. Mukerji’s Amsterdam Catalogue.) The 
dried plant is given to children for colic and also as an astrin- 
gent in gonorrhoea. (Stewart’s Punjab Plants.) Major Madden 
says that the flowering spikes are regarded as a protective 
against scorpions, the insects being paralysed through the 
presence of a twig. The ash yields a large quantity of potash, 
rendering it useful in the arts as well as in medicine. Mixed 
with orpiment this ash is used externally in the treatment of 
ulcers, and of warts on the penis and other parts of the body. 
(U. C. Dutt.) Sesamum oil and the ash (apamarga taila) are 
used in the treatment of disease of the ear, being poured into 
the meatus. Dr. Bidie says : “ Various English practitioners 
agree as to its marked diuretic properties in the form of a 
decoction.” Dr. Cornish reports favourably, having found it 
efficacious in the treatment of dropsy. Dr. Shortt reports on 
its use as an external applicant in the treatment of the bites 
of insects ; and Dr. Turner calls attention to it as a remedy 
