1382 
INDIAN MEDIOINAL PLANTS. 
(Gond) ; Mulkas, kanka, bonga, veduru, bonga-veduru, pente- 
veduru (Mad. Tel.); Bidungulu (Kan.). 
Habitat : — Throughout the plains and low hills of India, 
wild and cultivated. 
Steins many, tufted on a stout rootstock, branching from 
the base, upto 80-100ft. high by G 7iu. diam., graceful curving 
nodes prominent, lowest rooting, lower emitting, horizontal 
almost naked shoots armed at the notes with 2-3 stout recurved 
spines, sometimes an inch and more long, internodes upto ISin., 
walls l-2in., thick stem, sheaths coriaceous, variable in shapes 
upto 12-15 by 9-12in., striate, tip-rounded, margins plaited 
young, orange-yellow streaked on the green or red and thickly 
ciliate with golden hairs, blade upto 4in., triangular, acumi- 
nate glabrous’without densely lieriate within, margins decurrent 
thickly ciliate, ligule narrow, entire or fringed with pale hairs ; 
leaves upto 7-8 by lin , linear or linear lanceolate, tip stiff, glab- 
rous or puberulous beneath one or both margins scabrous, base 
rounded ciliate mid-rib narrow, veins 4-6 with 7-9 intermediate 
and a few transverse pellucid glands ; leaf sheath ending in a 
thick callus, and short briskly auricle, ligule short ; inflores- 
cence an enormous panicle often occupying the whole stem, 
branchlets bearing loose clusters of pales, suberect |-1 by |in. 
lanceolate acute, glabrous spikelets glumes jt-Jin. long, ovate 
lanceolate acute or mucronate many veined empty 2 or 0 ; 
flowering 3-7, uppermost 1-3 ; male or neuter, paled sub-acute ; 
keels 2 ciliate, lodicules ovate or obovate hyaline ciliate 1-3 
veined ; filaments slender, anthers obtuse yellow ; ovary oval- 
oblong tip, hairy, style short grain J-Jin. oblong beaked by the 
style base-smooth, grooved in one face. (Trimen.) 
Flowers at about 30 years of age, (Brandis.) 30-40, says 
Kanjilal. 
Uses : — In addition to the many important uses to which the 
bamboo is applied in tropical life, it forms by no means an 
insignificant article of the Indian Materia Medica. Its supposed 
virtues are set forth at length in the Taleef Shereef (art. Bans, 
