Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/622

swellings ; added to purgatives it is administered in rheumatism ; the flowers (calyxes) are used as an hæmostatic. (Pharmacogr. Ind. III 563.)

Chemical composition.— From 56 lbs. of the dry grass purchased in the bazar we obtained the large yield of 8¾ ozs. of essential oil ; it had a specific gravity of '995 at 25° F., and rotated a ray of polarized light 8.0 degrees to the left in a column 200 mm. long. The colour was that of pale sherry. According to Schimmel & Co., the essential oil reminds one of the odour of Elemi oil. Its sp. gr. is *915, the optical rotation + 34°. It boils between 170° and 250°, and contains phellandrene (Bericht von Schimmel & Co,, April, 1892) —Pharmacogr. Ind. III. 564.

Syn. : — Cymbopogon martini, Stapf.

Vern. : — Rusâ ghâs ; musel ; mirchia, gand bujina ; pâlâkhari (H.) ; Aghyâ-ghâs; gandha hena (B.) ; Rânus (Pb.) ; Rosegavat ; rohisha (Mar.).

Habitat .- — Central India, the United Provinces ; Panjab ; the Deccan, and the Central Provinces.

Root perennial, with long wiry fibres. Culms erect, from three to six feet high, often ramous, smooth, filled with a spongy pith. Leaves very long, tapering to a very fine point, smooth in every part and of a soft delicate texture. Sheaths shorter than the joints on full grown plants, with a membranaceous stipulary process at the mouth. Panicles as in A. Iwarancusa ; spikelets paired, but with only three joints. Flowers also paired, &c. as in the former species, only there the lowermost pair on the most sessile of the two spikeleis are both male, and one of them rests upon a smooth, convex, callous receptacle instead of a pedicel. Rachis jointed, and wooly. Calyx as in A.Iwarancusa. Corolla one-valved, a long black awn occupies the place of the other, which has two small filaments near its base. Nectary, &c. as in the foregoing species. (Roxburgh.)

Mr. R. S. Pearson, I. F. S., F. L. S., in his " Note on the Economic uses of Rosha Grass," published in the Indian Forest Records, Vol. V., Part VII., writes —

From a commercial point of view there are two forms of this botanical