Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/531

(Mr. C. B. Clarke writes of this plant that he is unable to name it, and presumes it may be an undescribed species ; in that case it should bear the discoverer's name — the Rev. A. Campbell.)

Vern. : — Sikyom baha (Santal).

Habitat : — High and dry situations in Chutia Nagpur, flowering during the hot season before the leaves appear. In some respects, this resembles C. latifolium as described in Roxburgh's Flora Indica.

Uses : — A decoction prepared from the bulb is given internally and pounded and made into a paste ; it is also applied externally by the Santals in dropsy. It is used for the diarrhœa of cattle. (Campbell) Watt ii. 591.

Habitat :— The Concans, Central India.

Leaves 2-3ft. diam. ; tripartite segments 2-3-fid or irregularly pinnatifid or pinnate at the base ; petiole l-3ft., smooth. Scape tapering, longer than the petiole, striped, dark and light- green, 10-40-fid. Flowers drooping ; involucre leaves 4-12 or more, subequal, oblong, acuminate, lanceolate, recurved, striped with purple ; filiform bracts very numerous. Perianth greenish, subglobose, ⅔in. diam., fleshy ; lobes conniving, subequal, margined with purple. Fruit size of a pigeon's egg, 6-ribbed, yellow. Root-stock globose, 1ft. diam., under cultivation. (Hooker). Seeds angular. (Trimen.)

Uses : — The root-stock is intensely bitter when raw. It is full of starch, which, when prepared, is of excellent culinary properties, and is far preferable to that of any other arrowroot for dysentery.