Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/632
(Gond) ; Mulkas, kanka, bonga, veduru, bonga-veduru, penteveduru (Mad. Tel.); Bidungulu (Kan.).
Habitat: — Throughout the plains and low hills of India, wild and cultivated.
Stems many, tufted on a stout rootstock, branching from the base, upto 80-100ft. high by 6-7in. 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 18in., walls 1-2in., 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, acuminate glabrous without densely heriate within, margins decurrent thickly ciliate, ligule narrow, entire or fringed with pale hairs ; leaves upto 7-8 by 1in , linear or linear lanceolate, tip stiff, glabrous 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 ; inflorescence an enormous panicle often occupying the whole stem, branchlets bearing loose clusters of pales, suberect ½-l by 1/5in. lanceolate acute, glabrous spikelets glumes 1/5-⅓in. long, ovate lanceolate acute or mucronate many veined empty 2 or ; 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 1/5-⅓in. 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,