Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/367

Habitat : — Sikkim Himalaya ; Khasia Mts.; Ganges Delta; Oudh ; Nilghiri or Kurg hills.

A large, parasitic shrub. Branches dichotomous, leafy, terete, slightly swollen at the nodes. Leaves rather thin and usually drying black, l-5in. long, very variable in breadth, petioled, obliquely ovate or falcate, acute or acuminate, 3-5 nerved ; nerves often strong. Flowers monoecious, in axillary, sessile or shortly peduncled fascicles, l-3in., minute, greenish ; the lateral usually female, central male or absent, sometimes appearing spicate from terminating leafless shoots, deciduous. Bracts cuspidate. Perianth-lobes 3 or 4, triangular oblong. Fruit oblong, of the size of a pea (¼-½in. long), truncate, smooth, yellowish ( Kurz ), " blackish-brown " ( Brandis

Mr. Duthie writes in his Flor. Up. Gang. PI., FIT. p. 65—

The Bundelkhand specimens collected by Edgeworth near Banda on Zizyphus xylopyrus and Bassia latifolia indicate a more robust habit of growth. The leaves are much broader and excessively coriaceous, and the light-brown colour to which they have dried, gives them a different aspect as compared with typical specimens from other localities in N. India. Trimen says, that in Ceylon the plant dries to a pale yellowish-brown colour. Sir Joseph Hooker was of opinion that the Banda plant might prove to be a different species. The only available material now at Kew is, however, insufficient to settle this point.

Uses : — The leaves of a viscum, doubtfully referred to this species, growing on Nux-Vomica trees in the neighbourhood of Cuttack, have been found to possess poisonous properties, similar to those of the tree on which it grows. The subject was investigated by Sir William O'Shaughnessy, who detected in the powdered leaves the presence of strychnine and brucine.

The powder of the dry leaf was used as a substitute for these drugs in the Hospital of the Medical College, Calcutta with complete success, in doses of one to three grains thrice daily. (Bengal Disp.)

Vern.:— Banda (H., Santal. and Kol.) ; Gurbel (Gond) ; Sundara badinika (Tel.).