Habitat : — A weed common throughout tropical India.
A procumbent, scabrous, hairy annual herb, usually quite flat. Leaves alternate, crisped, elliptic-cbovate, coarsely serrate or subpinnatifid, 1-1½in. Mowers axillary, sessile or nearly so, 1/5in., the upper sometimes in a leafy one-sided spike, yellow. Sepals 4 narrow, very hairy Segments 1/10in. long, ovate acute, ciliate. Corolla-tube short, lobes 4 imbricated in the bud, patent. Stamens 4 on the Corolla- tube ; anthers ovate. Ovary 2-celled, with 2 ovules; style terminal, bifid. Drupe (nearly dry) of 4, subconnate, 1-seeded pyrenes. Pyrene 1/6in. Testa of the seed thin. Seeds albuminous ; cotyledons flat.
Uses: — As a medicine, equal parts of the dry plant and fenugreek seeds rubbed to a fine powder, and applied warm to boils, quickly brings them to suppuration (Ainslie )
The fresh leaves ground up are applied to rheumatic swellings (Murray).
818. Heliotropium Eichwaldi, Steud. h.f.b.i.,. iv. 149.
Syn. :— H. europeum, Benth.
Vern. : — Nil Kattei, bithúa, atwin, popat buti, gidar tamákú (Ph. and II.); Chirgas (Kash.)
Habitat : — Punjab and Scinde ; in the plains frequent. Kashmir ; Srinuggar Merwara.
An erect herb, with a woody stem. Branches from the base 6-12in., softly closely hairy. Leaves ½-1½in. obtuse, ovate, lower long-petioled ; clothed on both sides with bulbous- based hairs, nerves not prominent on the upper surface ; petiole ⅛-lin. Flowers 2-ranked. Spikes dense, ebracteate, 2in. Calyx deciduous with the fruit, 5-parotite. Sepals 1/12in., ovate-lanceolate, hairy. Corolla-tube ⅛in., narrow, cylindric, hairy without; segments round, crenulate. Style very short. Stigma with a broad based conical appendage bifid at the apex, stigmatic ring not conspicuous. Nutlets 1/12in. glabrous, minutely verrucose.
Part used : — The leaf.
Uses : — The plant is emetic, and also given after snake-bite, and, along. with tobacco- oil, is applied. locally to the bite itself (Stewart).
