A twining herb. Stems wide-climbing, slender, with a few adpressed hairs. Stipules minute ; lanceolate, deciduous ;
petiole ½-1 ½in. Leaflets 3, membranous or subcoriaceous, small acute or subobtuse, green, with a few adpressed hairs above, grey and more hairy below, the end one ovate or oblong, l-2in. long. Racemes l-4in. lax, usually long, usually peduncled, elongated, the pedicel fascicled. Calyx ⅛-1/6in.; teeth lanceolate, as long as the tube. Corolla reddish. Pod linear, glabrous, recurved, 1 ½-2in. long, 8-10 seeded.
Use. — It is used in Hindu Medicine. Its properties are described in the Nighantu as follows : —
The Mashparni is bitter, cooling, sweet, astringent, and dry. It produces semen, strength, and blood. It cures consumption and fever and disorders of wind, bile and blood.
382. Mucuna monosperma, D.C., h.f.b.l, ii. 185.
Syn. — Carpopogon monospermum, Roxb. 553.
M. anguina, Wall.
Vern. — Sougârvi, mothi-kahili (Bomb.) ; Pedda, enooga, doola-gunda (Tel.).
Habitat. — East Himalayas, tropical zone, Khasia, Assam, Chittagong and the hills of the West Peninsula.
A large, woody climber, the young branches clothed with rufous, deciduous tormentum. Leaves large, rachis 2½-4½in., with red, deciduous pubescence. Stipules deciduous. Leaflets on short swollen stalks, 2-4, rotundate or broadly oval, shortly acuminate, smooth above, more or less closely pubescent beneath, lateral ones unequal-sided. Flowers large, 1¾in., bright violet, keel green, on divaricate pedicels, ½in. long, 6-10in., a lax pubescent receme (or panicle), shorter than leaves. Calyx sparingly clothed with red bristles ; upper segments wanting ; standard often with a few bristles on back. Pod 2in. ; broadty ovate-ovoid, shortly-stalked, somewhat curved, with a short decurved beak, with a broad double horizontal wing along both sutures and several (about 6) broad, erect, distinct wings extending from them at right angles nearly half
