Botany names

Description - A shrub attaining the height of 3-8 ft, with bluntly quadrangular stems and not much branched. Young parts usually glabrous. Leaves usually three at the node, opposite, coarsely and sharply serrate, glabrous, base acute, stout petioles. Numerous showy flowers in lax pubescent dichotomous cymes, with a pair of acute bracts at each branching and a flower in the fork, each in the axil of a large leafy bract and collectively forming a long lax terminal usually pyramidal errect panicle of 6-10 in long. Bluish corolla, glabrous outside, cylindric, hairy within the tube at the insertion of the stamens. The 2 upper and 2 lateral lobes are elliptic, flat, spreading and the lower lobe lip-like, concave. Fruit is a 4-lobed drupe, succulent with one pyrene in each lobe. Native of East India and Malasiya. Distributed throughout in forests of Srilanka and India. Flowering can be seen in the month of Aug-Sept.

Chemical Constituents- Root bark contains glucose and D-(-)mannitol; hydrolysis of crude saponin from bark yielded oleanolic acid, queretaroic acid and serratagenic acid.

Use - Roots used in rheumatism and dyspepsia. Leaves used as febrifuge, also as an external application in cephalgia and opthalmia. Seeds aperient, used in dropsy Root - Intermittent fever, bronchial asthma, hiccup, worm infestation, burning sensation, abdominal disorders, wasting diseases, diseases of head, sprue. It is used in febrile, catarrhal affections and also in malarial fevers.It is used in snake poison and in diseases where breathing is difficult, like asthma allergy, bronchitis, cough etc