1142 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Use:— The leaves are used in infusion by the Vaidyas 
in Southern India as a remedy for headache. (Ainslie.1 
When soaked in water the seeds immediately become thickly coated with 
a semi-opaque mucilage ; the kernel is oily and has a sweet nutty taste ; the 
seeds are used medicinally on account of the mucilage which they afford. 
(Pharmacogr. Ind. III. 265.) 
1132. P. urinaria, Linn., h.f.b. i., v. 293. Roxb. . 
680 . 
Sans. : — Tftmra-Valli. 
V trn. : — Hazar munee (B. and H.);Yerra userekee (Tel.); 
L&l-bhuin-anvalah (H.) ; Badar-zhapni (Santal) ; Shirappunelli 
(Tam.) ; Chiru-kizhukfinelli, chukanna-kizhanelli (Mai.). 
Habitat: — Throughout India, from the Punjab to Assam 
and Ceylon. 
An annual low or tall, diffusely branched, erect or decumbent 
herb (becoming perennial in some soils), slender, glabrous. 
Leaf-bearing branchlets short, flattened or shortly winged, 
often tinged with red. Leaves numerous, closely placed, dis- 
tichously imbricate, nearly sessile, small J-yin., oblong, rounded 
at base, apiculate, paler or silvery beneath. Stipules peltate, 
very acute. Flowers yellowish, all the year round, numerous, 
very minute, nearly sessile, solitary. Sepals green, ciliolate, 
those of the male’s sub-orbicular ; of the females oblong, not 
enlarged in fruit. Fruit very small, scarcely |in., depressed 
globose, scarcely lobed, muriculate or echinate. Seeds transver- 
sely furrowed. Styles with hooked arms. Filaments very 
shortly united. Anthers erect, didymous, not apiculate. 
Use : — Medicinal properties similar to those of P. Niruri. 
In Chutia Nagpur, the root is believed to be sudorific, being 
given to sleepless children along with Zornia diphylla. 
(Campbell.) 
1133. P. simplex, Retz., h.f.b.i., v. 295; Roxb. 
678. 
Vern. : — Tandi meral (Santal); Bhuiavali (Mar.); Uchchi 
usirika (Tel.). 
