Some of the most popular herbs and medicinal plants grown in India are as follows:
1. Acacia:
A moderate-sized, almost evergreen tree with a short trunk, a spreading crown and feathery foliage, found throughout the drier parts of India. The tree generally attains a height of c 15m and a girth of 1.2 m, though trees up to a height of 30 m with a girth of 3 m have also been recorded.
Bark dark brown to almost black, longitudinally fissured or deeply cracked; leaves 2.5-5.0 cm long, bi-pinnate with spine-scent stipules, pinnules narrowly oblong; flowers golden-yellow, fragrant, crowded in long-stalked globose heads, 1.5cm in diam, forming axillary clusters of 2-5 heads; pods flat, 7.5-15.0cm, contracted between the circular seeds.
Babul is perhaps the most important tree of the drier parts of India.
There are three recognized varieties in India –
(1) var. cupressiformis Stewart (Ramkanta or ramkanti babul or kabuli kikar) with its characteristic broom-like ascending branches. This variety is not much used;
(2) var. vediana Cooke (Kaora, kaulia, kauria or vedi babul) is a smaller variety with shorter bole and rough, fissured bark. The wood is inferior to that of the telia babul and is usually considered fit only for firewood;
(3) Telia babul—the much prized typical variety (godi teli or telia babul) with a spreading shady crown of feathery foliage and moniliform pods. This variety is most extensively grown in plantations or in natural forest crops.
2. Acorus Calamus:
An herbaceous perennial with a very long, indefinite, branched rhizome immersed in the mud, with short joints and large leaf-scars, cylindrical or somewhat compressed, about ¾ inch in diameter, smooth, pinkish or pale green, the leaf-scars brown, white and spongy within, giving off below numerous, long straight slender roots.
Leaves few, distichously alternate, forming erect tufts at the extremities of the rhizome-branches 3 to 4 feet or more long, about an inch wide, broader at the insertion on the rhizome, tapering into a long acute point, entire, smooth, yellowish green, pink at the base, strongly conduplicate and equitantly sheathing below, sword-like above with the central portion thick and gradually narrowing to the entire edges which are usually somewhat wavy or crimped.
Flowering stems (scapes) one or two, each arising from the axils of the outer leaves which they much resemble, compressed-triangular, solid, spongy. Flowers very small, sessile, densely packed on all sides of the axis so as to form a solid, cylindrical, tapering blunt spike (spadix) 2— 4 inches long, often somewhat curved, really terminating the scape, but apparently lateral and projecting upwards at an angle from it, the direction of the scape itself being continued by a tapering two- edged bract (spathe), 2—3 feet long, in all respects like the leaves.
Perianth polyphyllous, of 6 leaves imbricated in two rows, erect, oblong-obovate, acute, scarious, thicker at the top and bent inward, one-nerved, whitish, inconspicuous and soon withering. Stamens 6, opposite to and as long as the perianth leaves, either free or very slightly united with their bases, filaments membranous, flattened slightly tapering upwards, with a dark nerve up the centre, anthers small, readily detached, 2-celled, cells divergent at the base.
Ovary large, exceeding the perianth and stamens, obovoid-top-shaped, trigonous but irregularly so from pressure of adjacent flowers, smooth, grooved along the angles, the exposed portion thick, pale green, bluntly pointed, the summit capped by the minute sessile stigmas, the lower portion thin and white, 3-celled, the lower part of the cells excavated in the substance of the spadix, filled with a brittle gelatinous substance in which the ovules are immersed; ovules very minute, 5 or 6 in each cell, forming tufts which are pendulous from the large placentas projecting from the upper part of the axis, and are surrounded at the base by a tuft of very fine hairs; coats of the ovule very distinct though extremely delicate and transparent, their mouths prolonged into tubes with a fringe at the orifice, the inner one protruded much beyond the outer, nucleus small, dark, club-shaped.
Fruit (not seen) bluntly six-sided, prismatical-clavate, about ¾ inch in diameter in the thickest portion, herbaceous, indehiscent, 1—3 seeded. Seed with a thin testa, embryo in the axis of the horny endosperm, green, cylindrical, radicle next the hilum.
3. Althaea Officinalis:
The stems, which die down in the autumn, are erect, 3 to 4 feet high, simple, or putting out only a few lateral branches. The leaves, shortly petioled, are roundish, ovate-cordate, 2 to 3 inches long, and about 1 ¼ inch broad, entire or three to five lobed, irregularly toothed at the margin, and thick. They are soft and velvety on both sides, due to a dense covering of stellate hairs. The flowers are shaped like those of the common Mallow, but are smaller and of a pale colour, and are either axillary, or in panicles, more often the latter.
The stamens are united into a tube, the anthers, kidney-shaped and one-celled. The flowers are in bloom during August and September, and are followed, as in other species of this order, by the flat, round fruit called popularly ‘cheeses.’
The common Mallow is frequently called by country people ‘Marsh Mallow,’ but the true Marsh Mallow is distinguished from all the other Mallows growing in Britain, by the numerous divisions of the outer calyx (six to nine cleft), by the hoary down which thickly clothes the stems, and foliage, and by the numerous panicles of blush-coloured flowers, paler than the Common Mallow.
The roots are perennial, thick, long and tapering, very tough and pliant, whitish-yellow outside, white and fibrous within.
The whole plant, particularly the root, abounds with a mild mucilage, which is emollient to a much greater degree than the common Mallow. The generic name, Althaea, is derived from the Greek, altho (to cure), from its healing properties. The name of the order, Malvaceae, is derived from the Greek, malake (soft), from the special qualities of the Mallows in softening and healing.
Most of the Mallows have been used as food, and are mentioned by early classic writers in this connection. Mallow was an esculent vegetable among the Romans, a dish of Marsh Mallow was one of their delicacies.
The Chinese use some sort of Mallow in their food, and Prosper Alpinus stated (in 1592) that a plant of the Mallow kind was eaten by the Egyptians. Many of the poorer inhabitants of Syria, especially the Fellahs, Greeks and Armenians, subsist for weeks on herbs, of which, Marsh Mallow is one of the most common. When boiled first and fried with onions and butter, the roots are said to form a palatable dish, and in times of scarcity, consequent upon the failure of the crops, this plant, which fortunately grows there in great abundance, is much collected for food.
Horace and Martial mention the laxative properties of the Marsh Mallow leaves and root, and Virgil tells us of the fondness of goats for the foliage of the Mallow.
Dioscorides extols it as a remedy, and in ancient days it was not only valued as a medicine, but was used, especially the Musk Mallow, to decorate the graves of friends.
Pliny said – ‘Whosoever shall take a spoonful of the Mallows shall that day be free from all diseases that may come to him.’ All Mallows contain abundant mucilage, and the Arab physicians in early times used the leaves as a poultice to suppress inflammation.
Preparations of Marsh Mallow, on account of their soothing qualities, are still much used by country people for inflammation, outwardly and inwardly, and are used for lozenge-making. French druggists and English sweetmeat-makers prepare a confectionary paste (Pate de Guimauve) from the roots of Marsh Mallow, which is emollient and soothing to a sore chest, and valuable in coughs and hoarseness. The ‘Marsh Mallows’ usually sold by confectioners here are a mixture of flour, gum, egg-albumin, etc., and contain no mallow.
In France, the young tops and tender leaves of Marsh Mallow are eaten uncooked, in spring salads, for their property in stimulating the kidneys, a syrup being made from the roots for the same purpose.
4. Amorphophallus cam Panulates:
A tuberous, stout, indigenous herb, 1.0-1.5m in height, found almost throughout India and also cultivated. Tubers depressed, globose or hemispherical, 20-30 cm in diam, dark brown outside, pale dull brown inside or sometimes almost white, with numerous, long terete roots; leaves solitary, tripartite, 30-90 cm broad or even more, appearing long after the flowers- petioles 60-90 cm long, stout, warted, dark green and mottled with paler blotches; segments 5-18cm long and 2.5-9.0cm broad, obovate or oblong, acute, sessile; peduncle short, stout, elongating in fruit; spathe 15-30 cm broad, bell-shaped, with recurved undulate and crisped margins, greenish pink externally or pinkish purple; spadix sessile, columnar, as long as the spathe, appendage usually longer than the spathe, cream- coloured, smooth; flowers unisexual: male inflorescence sub- turbinate, male flowers pale yellow, densely crowded; female inflorescence cylindric, styles purple; berries clustered, obovoid, red, 2-3 seeded, 8-12 mm long.
6. Aristolochia Indica:
Perennial climbers. Stem greenish or pale to dark purple, woody. Leaves variable, usually obovate-oblong to sub-pandurate, somewhat cordate, acuminate. Flowers pale-green, few, in axillary racemes; perianth narrowed into a cylindric tube terminating in a horizontal funnel- shaped purple mouth and lip clothed with purple- tinged hairs. Capsules oblong or globose-oblong 3-5 cm long. Seeds flat, ovate, winged. Transverse section of root shows dicotyledonous root structure with considerable secondary growth.
According to the maturity of the roots, the number of growth rings vary. The primary cortex and epidermis are withered and cast off. The outer tissue consists of cork cells consisting of 5 to 6 layers. The region between wood and periderm is occupied by secondary phloem consisting of sieve tubes, phloem parenchyma, phloem fibres and phloem ray cells. In mature roots, the fibres make up the greater part of the secondary phloem. The patches of fibres and soft phloem tissue occur in radial seriation and they form secondary phloem wedges separated by wide rays.
The phloem rays are more or less of uniform width, but they increase outwardly. These phloem ray cells are parenchymatous and a number of crystals are found in these cells. The parenchyma cells which form crystal storage lie usually close to the fibres and sometimes form extensive rows and completely en-sheath the strands of fibres. The secondary xylem occupies a major portion of the root and is characterised by annual rings.
Powdered Root:
Dirty white to dusky yellow. Under the microscope the powder is characterised by the presence of fragments of cork cells, portions of fibres, pitted xylem vessels, star shaped crystals, parenchyma cells, medullary ray cells and phloem ray cells.
5. Atropa Belladonna:
A large, bushy, perennial herb, 3—5 feet high. Root large, fleshy, branched, pale brown. Stems thick, cylindrical, smooth, purplish, at first dividing into three, the branches dichotomous, and frequently branching, the youngest shoots pubescent. Leaves numerous, alternate below, in pairs above, one leaf of the pair much larger than the other, all shortly stalked, 3—9 inches long, broadly ovate or oval, tapering into the petiole, acute, perfectly entire, dark green, veiny.
Flowers solitary (rarely 2 or 3 together), coming off from between the pairs of leaves, stalked, drooping; peduncle as long as or longer than calyx, with short glandular hairs. Calyx deeply 5-cleft, the segments triangular-acuminate, persistent. Corolla bell- shaped, about an inch long, finely downy outside, cut into 5 broad, shallow, blunt, nearly equal, spreading or slightly re-curved lobes, dull reddish-purple, tinged with pale green below.
Stamens 5, inserted on the base of the corolla and shorter, than it, nearly equal; filaments curved upwards at the end; anthers small, roundish, yellowish-white.
Style slightly exserted; stigma capitate, green. Fruit a fleshy berry, sub-globular, depressed, umbilicate at the summit, very obscurely 2-lobed, about ¾ of an inch in diameter, deep purple-black, smooth, shining, surrounded at base by the enlarged persistent calyx, 2- celled, fruit-stalk erect. Seeds numerous, crowded, lightly attached to the axile placentas, rounded or oval or faintly kidney-shaped, about 1/16 of an inch in diameter, minutely pitted and reticulated; embryo curved on itself in the endosperm.
6. Calotropis. Procera:
A small, erect and compact shrub, covered with cottony tomentum, upto 5.4 m in height, found growing wild throughout India in comparatively drier and warmer areas, upto an altitude of 1,050 m. Bark soft, corky; leaves sub-sessile, broadly ovate, ovate- oblong, elliptic or obovate, mucronate, cottony pubescent when young, 5.0-23.0 cm x 4.5-8.2 cm; flowers white, purple-spotted or pink, with erect petals scented, in long-pedunculated cottony, umbellate cymes which become glabrous; follicles sub-globose, ellipsoid or ovoid, recurved, 7.5-10.0 cm x 5.0-7.5 cm; seeds broadly ovate, acute, flattened, narrowly margined, light brown, coma 3.2 cm, comprising a tuft of silky hairs.
7. Adhatoda Zeylanica:
An evergreen, gregarious, stiff, perennial shrub, 1.2-6.0m in height, distributed throughout India, up to an altitude of 1,300m. Leaves elliptic-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, entire, 5-30 cm long, hairy, light green above, dark below, leathery; flowers large, white with red or yellow-barred throats, in spikes with large bracts; capsules clavate, longitudinally channeled, 1.9-2.2 cm x 0.8 cm; seeds globular.
The shrub grows on waste lands and in a variety of habitats and soil. It is sometimes cultivated as a hedge, but no systematic cultivation has been undertaken. It can be grown from seeds or by cuttings, but care is needed to prevent it from becoming a weed. There is considerable demand for this plant within the country. The demand is being met from natural sources. Several fungal diseases have been reported on the plant, the most common being the greasy rust, caused by Chnoopsora butleri Diet & Syd.
8. Cassia Acutifolia:
A small shrub about two feet high. Stem much as in C. obovata. Leaves as in the last, but leaflets in 4 or 5 pairs, very shortly stalked, ¾ to 1 ¼ inch long, lanceolate or oval-lanceolate, acute at both ends and mucronate at the apex, entire, very finely pubescent or nearly smooth, rather thick, pale green. Flowers as in the last, but a little smaller, petals with a wider claw.
Pod broadly oblong, about 2 inches long by 7/8 broad, stalked, somewhat tapering below, almost straight, smooth or slightly puberulous, without any crests or other appendage; otherwise as in C. obovata. Seeds about 6 in the pod, structure as in the last species.
Several species of Cassia contribute to the drug of commerce, and were comprised in single species by Linnaeus under the name of Cassia Senna. Since his day, the subject has been more fully investigated, and it is known that several countries utilize the leaves of their own indigenous varieties in the same way. The two most widely exported and officially recognized are C. acutifolia and C. angustifolia (India or Tinnevelly Senna).
Senna is an Arabian name, and the drug was first brought into use by the Arabian physicians Serapion and Mesue, and Achiarius was the first of the Greeks to notice it. He recommends not the leaves but the fruit, and Mesue also prefers the pods to the leaves, thinking them more powerful, though they are actually less so, but they do not cause griping.
The leaves of C. acutifolia are collected principally in Nubia. Ignatius Pallme, who travelled much in Africa, wrote – ‘Senna is found in abundance in many parts of Kardofan, but the leaves are not collected on account of the existing monopoly. The Government draws its supplies from Dongola in Nubia.’
9. Catharanthus Roses:
An erect, much branched, annual or perennial herb, 30-90 cm in height, probably native to Malagasy, occasionally found wild but mostly naturalized upto an altitude of 1,300m, and commonly grown in gardens throughout the country. Leaves oblong-elliptic, acute, rounded apex, glossy, slightly foetid; flowers fragrant, white to pinkish-purple in terminal or axillary cymose clusters; follicle hairy, many seeded, 2-3 cm long; seeds oblong, minute, black.
The plant is cultivated mainly for its alkaloids and to a small extent as an ornamental. Three distinct cultivars or forms based on the flower colour are met with, viz. the pink flowered ‘rosea’, the white flowered ‘alba’, and the white with a pink or yellow ring in the orifice region ‘ocellata’.
These hybridise freely and produce many shades of intermediate forms, differing in plant height, branching habit, pubescence and percentage total alkaloids and their components. Pink flowered cultivar gives higher yield of foliage and roots, and total alkaloids. The commercial crop, grown for roots, is a free admixture of three cultivars distinguished by flower colours, viz. pink, white and white with a pink eye.
10. Cinchona Succirubra:
A tree said to reach 50 — 80 feet in height, but more usually not more than 20 — 40 feet, with an erect trunk and a frondose head; bark brown, with a few whitish markings, transversely cracked; young branches pubescent. Leaves on longish, pubescent petioles, flat above ; stipules oblong, obtuse, nearly glabrous, caducous; blade 3—6 inches or more long, rounded ovate or broadly oval, acute or subobtuse at the apex, rounded or slightly tapering at the base, quite entire, thin, glabrous, dark green and shining above, much paler and finely pubescent on the leaves beneath, but without scrobicules.
Inflorescence and flowers as in the other species. Fruit variable in form, ¾ to 1½ inches long. Seed as in the others.
The species most cultivated in India and elsewhere are Cinchona succirubra, or Peruvian Bark, and C. officinalis. These evergreen trees grow in the hottest part of the world and are said to constitute a twenty-ninth part of the whole flowering plants of the tropics. Peruvian bark was introduced to Europe in 1640, but the plant producing it was not known to botanists till 1737; a few years later it was renamed Cinchona after the Countess of Chinchon, who first made the bark known in Europe for its medicinal qualities.
The history of Cinchona and its many vicissitudes affords a striking illustration of the importance of Government aid in establishing such an industry. It was known and used by the Jesuits very early in its history, but was first advertised for sale in England by James Thompson in 1658, and was made official in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1677. The bark is spongy, very slight odour, taste astringent and strongly bitter.
11. Foeniculum Vulgar Mill:
A stout, glabrous, aromatic herb, 5—6 ft. high; leaves pinnately decompound; flowers small, yellow, in compound terminal umbels; fruit oblong, ellipsoid or cylindrical, 6-7 mm. in length, straight or slightly curved, greenish or yellowish brown; mericarp 5-ridged with prominent vittae.
The plant is a native of southern Europe and Asia. A large number of varieties and races differing in the size, odour and taste of the fruits exist among wild and cultivated fennels, but they are hardly distinguishable from one another; they are regarded as races, varieties or sub-species of F. vulgare.
The varieties which yield commercially important volatile oils are referred generally to the sub-species capillaceum and placed under two distinct varieties, var. vulgare (Mill.) Thellung (cultivated or wild, yielding Bitter Fennel Oil) and var. dulce (Mill.) Thellung (cultivated, yielding Sweet or Roman or Florence Fennel Oil). Var. vulgare is cultivated chiefly in Russia, Rumania, Hungary, Germany, France, Italy, India, Japan, Argentina and U.S.A. The cultivation of var. dulce is confined to France, Italy and Macedonia in southern Europe. Indian fennel is sometimes regarded as a distinct variety, var. panmorium.
12. Hyoscyamus Niger:
An annual or biennial herb, 1—2½ feet high, with a large tap- shaped wrinkled root, brown outside and white within, and an erect, branched, thick, stiff, cylindrical, pale green stem, covered with long, clammy, jointed, glandular hairs.
Root-leaves large, 6—8 inches long or more, stalked, spreading in a rosette, triangular-ovate with an undulated sinuate margin, stem-leaves much smaller, passing into bracts, alternate, sessile and somewhat amplexicaul, ovate- oblong, acute, with large undulated, spreading laciniae; all thin, pale green, flaccid, slightly hairy above, more conspicuously below, and the veins covered also with long, viscid-glandular hairs.
Flowers numerous, sessile or shortly stalked, solitary in the axils of the large, leafy, spreading bracts, crowded, the whole forming a two- ranked, unilateral, scorpioid spike or raceme, which elongates and straightens out after flowering. Calyx large, bell-shaped, with, an ovoid tube and a broadly-funnel-shaped, spreading limb, with 5 shallow, equal, broadly-triangular acute teeth, covered with long, clammy hairs, persistent.
Corolla 1—1¼ inch wide, the tube funnel- shaped, the limb spreading, and divided into 5 rounded, blunt, shallow, rather unequal lobes, imbricated in the bud, straw-coloured elegantly net-veined with purple and with a purple throat.
Stamens 5, inserted near the base of the corolla-tube, but adherent to it for half way up and there slightly hairy, filaments slender, shorter than the corolla but somewhat exerted, anthers dorsifixed, purple, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary about as long as, and inclosed in the tube of the calyx, smooth, 2-celled, with a thin partition and large axile placentas; style a little exceeding the stamens.
Fruit a capsule, enclosed in the globular tube of the enlarged persistent calyx, now an inch long, tough, coriaceous, and with prominent, stiff veins; pericarp smooth, gibbous at the base, the portion in contact with the calyx-tube membranous and semi-transparent, the top hard and rigid, forming a cap or lid, along the lower edge of which dehiscence takes place, 2-celled.
Seeds very numerous, closely packed on the large, spongy placentas, roundish-oval in outline, about, 1/18 inch wide, hollowed slightly on each, side, brown, marked with fine but conspicuous, prominent reticulations; embryo much curved in the endosperm.
13. Digitalis Purpurea:
The normal life of a Fox-glove plant is two seasons, but sometimes the roots, which are formed of numerous, long, thick fibres, persist and throw up flowers for several seasons.
In the first year, a rosette of leaves, but no stem, is sent up. In the second year, one or more flowering stems are thrown up, which are from 3 to 4 feet high, though even sometimes more, and bear long spikes of drooping flowers, which bloom in the early summer, though the time of flowering differs much, according to the locality.
As a rule, the flowers are in perfection in July. As the blossoms on the main stem gradually fall away, smaller lateral shoots are often thrown out from its lower parts, which remain in flower after the principal stem has shed its blossoms. These are also promptly developed if by mischance the central stem sustains any serious injury.
The radical leaves are often a foot or more long, contracted at the base into a long, winged footstalk, the wings formed by the lower veins running down into some distance. They have slightly indented margins and sloping lateral veins, which are a very prominent feature. The flowering stems give off a few leaves that gradually diminish in size from below upwards. All the leaves are covered with small, simple, un-branched hairs.
The flowers are bell-shaped and tubular, 1 ½ to 2 ½ inches long, flattened above, inflated beneath, crimson outside above and paler beneath, the lower lip furnished with long hairs inside and marked with numerous dark crimson spots, each surrounded with a white border. The shade of the flowers varies much, especially under cultivation, sometimes the corollas being found perfectly white.
In cultivated plants, there frequently occurs a malformation, whereby, one or two of the uppermost flowers become united, and form an erect, regular, cup-shaped flower, through the centre of which the upper extremity of the stem is more or less prolonged.
The Foxglove is a favourite flower of the honey-bee, and is entirely developed by the visits of this insect. For that reason, its tall and stately spikes of flowers are at their best in those sunny, midsummer days when the bees are busiest.
The projecting lower lip of the corolla forms an alighting platform for the bee, and as he pushes his way up the bell, to get at the honey which lies in a ring round, the seed vessel at the top of the flower, the anthers of the stamens which lie flat on the corolla above him, are rubbed against his back.
Going from flower to flower up the spike, he rubs pollen thus, from one blossom on to the cleft stigma of another blossom, and thus the flower is fertilized and seeds are able to be produced. The life of each flower, from the time the bud opens till the time it slips off its corolla, is about six days. An almost incredible number of seeds are produced, a single Foxglove plant providing from one to two million seeds to ensure its propagation.
It is noteworthy that although the flower is such a favourite with bees and is much visited by other smaller insects, who may be seen taking refuge from cold and wet in its drooping blossoms on chilly evenings, yet no animals will browse upon the plant, perhaps instinctively recognizing its poisonous character.
The Foxglove derives its common name from the shape of the flowers resembling the finger of a glove. It was originally Folks- glove – the glove of the ‘good folk’ or fairies, whose favourite haunts, were supposed to be in the deep hollows and woody dells, where the Foxglove delights to grow. Folks-glove is one of its oldest names, and is mentioned in a list of plants in the time of Edward III.
Its Norwegian name, Revbielde (Foxbell), is the only foreign one that alludes to the Fox, though there is a northern legend that bad fairies gave these blossoms to the fox that he might put them on his toes to soften his tread when he prowled among the roosts.
The earliest known form of the word is the Anglo-Saxon foxes glofa (the glove of the fox).
The mottlings of the blossoms of the Foxglove and the Cowslip, like the spots on butterfly wings and on the tails of peacocks and pheasants, were said to mark where the elves had placed their fingers, and one legend ran that the marks on the Foxglove were a warning sign of the baneful juices secreted by the plant, which in Ireland gain it the popular name of “Dead Man’s Thimbles.”
In Scotland, it forms the badge of the Farquharsons, as the Thistle does of the Stuarts. The German name Fingerhut (thimble) suggested to Leonhard Fuchs (the well-known German herbalist of the sixteenth century, after whom the Fuchsia has been named) the employment of the Latin adjective Digitalis (from Digitabulum, a thimble) as a designation for the plant, which, as he remarked, up to the time when he thus named it, in 1542, had no name in either Greek or Latin.
The Foxglove was employed by the old herbalists for various purposes in medicine, most of them wholly without reference to those valuable properties which render it useful as a remedy’ in the hands of modern physicians. Gerard recommends it to those ‘who have fallen from high places,’ and Parkinson speaks highly of the bruised herb or of its expressed juice for scrofulous swellings, when applied outwardly in the form of an ointment, and the bruised leaves for cleansing for old sores and ulcers.
Dodoens (1554) prescribed it boiled in wine as an expectorant, and it seems to have been in frequent use in cases in which the practitioners of the present day would consider it highly dangerous.
Culpepper says it is of ‘a gentle, cleansing nature and withal very friendly to nature. The Herb is familiarly and frequently used by the Italians to heal any fresh or green wound, the leaves being but bruised and bound thereon; and the juice thereof is also used in old sores, to cleanse, dry and heal them. It has been found by experience to be available for the King’s evil, the herb bruised and applied, or an ointment made with the juice thereof, and so used. I am confident that an ointment of it is one of the best remedies for a scabby head that is.’
Strangely enough, the Foxglove, so handsome and striking in our landscape, is not mentioned by Shakespeare, or by any of the old English poets. The earliest known descriptions of it are those given about in the middle of the sixteenth century by Fuchs and Tragus in their Herbals.
According to an old manuscript, the Welsh physicians of the thirteenth century appear to have frequently made use of it in the preparation of external medicines. Gerard and Parkinson advocate its use for a number of complaints, and later Salmon, in the New London Dispensatory, praised the plant.
14. Pandanus (Kewda):
A densely, branched shrub, rarely erect, found along the coast of India and in Andaman Islands; it is common on the sea shore forming a belt of dense, impenetrable vegetation above the high water mark Stem upto 6 m. high, supported by aerial roots; leaves glaucous-green, 0.9—1.5 m. long, ensiform, caudate acuminate, coriaceous, with spines on the margins and on the midrib; spadix of male flowers. 25—50 cm. long, with numerous subsessile cylindric spikes, 5-10 cm. long, enclosed in long, white, fragrant, caudate acuminate spathes – spadix of female flowers solitary, 5 cm. in diameter : fruit an oblong or globose syncarpium, 15—25 cm. in diameter, yellow or red: drupes numerus.
This species is the most widespread and has been recorded from Mauritius Islands in the west to Polynesian Islands in the east, it is highly polymorphous and has been described under several specific names. It includes numerous varieties and forms, some of them fixed and selected in various countries for specific uses.
An unarmed form, forma laevis Warb., is cultivated for the fragrant bracts of the inflorescence, while forma samak, a group of prickly pandans, is preferred for the tough leaves suitable for matting; another form with longitudinal yellow bands on leaves (forma variegatus) is grown for ornamental purposes.
In Pacific Islands, some of the forms (e.g., forma pulposus) are cultivated for their edible fruits; they are said to be carefully propagated by cuttings. A detailed study of these variants and their systematic position is still lacking.
The plants are found growing generally along banks of rivers, canals, fields, ponds, etc.; they are considered to be good soil binder. The male inflorescences are valued for the fragrant smell emitted by the tender white spathes covering the flowers and for the valuable attar obtained from them. Though found scattered over a large number of places in India, the commercial exploitation of male spadices is centred mostly around Kollapalli, Meghna and Agraram in Ganjam district (Orissa), and a few centres in Madras and Uttar Pradesh.
15. Podophyllum Peltatum:
A perennial herb with a much elongated creeping rhizome, reaching 6 feet in length, which is cylindrical, rarely branched, dark brown, marked with the scars of the scales which clothe it when young, and at intervals of 2 or 3 inches with the bases of the flowering stems of previous years, terminating in an erect flowering stem, its growth in the horizontal direction being continued by a bud at the base of the flowering stem. Boots given off at each joint of the rhizome, fibrous, rather thick, simple.
Stems either flowerless or flowering, erect, about a foot high, cylindrical, smooth, pale green or pinkish. Leaves on the flowerless stems solitary, peltate; on the flowering stems two, opposite, terminating the stem, petioles about 3 inches long, erect, curved, cylindrical, blade horizontal or somewhat inclined, about 5 inches wide, very deeply palmately cut into 5-7 oblong or inversely Wedge-shaped segments coarsely toothed or cut at their ends, perfectly glabrous and shining, wavy, rather glaucous green.
Flower solitary, about 2 inches across, on a short, strongly curved peduncle, coming off from the fork between the two leaves, with three small fugacious bracts beneath the flower. Sepals 6, unequal, quickly caducous, blunt, pale green, imbricate. Petals 6-9, hypogynous, twice as long as the sepals, obovate-oval, nearly equal, delicate, finely veined, white, soon falling. Stamens 12-18, hypogynous, filaments slender, short, anthers linear, about as long as the filaments, 2-celled bursting longitudinally.
Pistil superior, composed of one carpel; ovary ovoid, smooth, one-celled, longer than the stamens, with numerous ovules arranged in many rows on the parietal (ventral) placenta; stigma almost sessile, large, thick, peltate, lobed and undulated. Fruit a yellowish berry, usually 1½ inches long, ovoid, soft, and fleshy, indehiscent.
Seeds about 12 or more, attached to the greatly enlarged placenta, yellow, each surrounded by a pulpy aril, which nearly encloses it, the whole forming a soft mass which completely fills the cavity of the fruit ; embryo small, at base of the abundant endosperm.
16. Thornapple:
The Thornapple is a large and coarse herb, though an annual, branching somewhat freely, giving a bushy look to the plant. It attains a height of about 3 feet, its spreading branches covering an area almost as broad. On rich soil it may attain a height of even 6 feet.
The root is very long – thick and whitish, giving off many fibres. The stem is stout, erect and leafy, smooth, a pale yellowish- green in colour, branching repeatedly in a forked manner, and producing in the forks of the branches a leaf and a single, erect flower. The leaves are large and angular, 4 to 6 inches long, uneven at the base, with a wavy and coarsely-toothed margin, and have the strong, branching veins very plainly developed. The upper surface is dark and greyish-green, generally smooth, the under surface paler, and when dry, minutely wrinkled.
The plant flowers nearly all the summer. The flowers are large and handsome, about 3 inches in length, growing singly on short stems springing from the axils of the leaves or at the forking of the branches. The calyx is long, tubular and somewhat swollen below, and very sharply five-angled, surmounted by five sharp teeth.
The corolla, folded and only half-opened, is funnel-shaped, of a pure white, with six prominent ribs, which are extended into the same number of sharp-pointed segments. The flowers open in the evening for the attraction of night-flying moths, and emit a powerful fragrance.
The flowers are succeeded by large, egg-shaped seed capsules of a green colour, about the size of a large walnut and covered with numerous sharp spines, hence the name of the plant. When ripe, this seed-vessel opens at the top, throwing back four valve-like forms, leaving a long, central structure upon which are numerous rough, dark-brown seeds. The appearance of the plant when in flower and fruit is so peculiar that it cannot be mistaken for any other native herb.
The plant is smooth, except for a slight downiness on the younger parts, which are covered with short, curved hairs, which fall off as growth proceeds. It exhales a rank, very heavy and somewhat nauseating narcotic odour. This foetid odour arises from the leaves, especially when they are bruised, but the flowers are sweet-scented, though producing stupor if their exhalations are breathed for any length of time.
The plant is strongly narcotic, but has a peculiar action on the human frame which renders it very valuable as a medicine. The whole plant is poisonous, but the seeds are the most active; neither drying nor boiling destroys the poisonous properties. The usual consequences of the poison when taken in sufficient quantity are dimness of sight, dilation of the pupil, giddiness and delirium, sometimes amounting to mania, but its action varies greatly on different persons.
Many fatal instances of its dangerous effects are recorded- it is thought to act more powerfully on the brain than Belladonna and to produce greater delirium. The remedies to be administered in case of poisoning by Stramonium are the same as those described for Henbane poisoning, and also Belladonna poisoning. The pupils have become widely dilated even by accidentally rubbing the eyes with the fingers after pulling the fresh leaves of Stramonium from the plant.
The seeds have in several instances caused death, and accidents have sometimes occurred from swallowing an infusion of the herb in mistake for other preparations, such as senna tea.
Browsing animals as a rule refuse to eat Thornapple, being repelled by its disagreeable odour and nauseous taste, so that its presence is not really dangerous to any of our domestic cattle. Among human beings the greater number of accidents has occurred among children, who have eaten the half-ripe seeds which have a sweetish taste.