संस्कृत नाम- शुक्ल अर्कः
Botanical name - Calotropis gigantea
Description - Calotropis gigantia is a purplish flowered and Calotropis procera is white flowered. A branched milky shrub. Sessile, thick, glaucousum leaves, clothed with cottony tomentum. Smell less flowers in umbellate lateral cymes. Fruits are follicles, broad, thick, fleshy and green. Numerous seeds with white coma.
Chemical_Constituents- Stem bark contains resinols alpha- and Beta-calotropols, a colourh wax. Flowers contain esters of alpha- and Beta-calotropols, fatty acids. Stem bark contatain Beta-amyrin, giganteol, wax, sterols. Root bark contains 6-amyrin, 2 isomeric crystalline alcohols, giganteol and iso-giganteol. Aerial parts contain flavonol glycosic colotropiside. Latex contains alpha-amyrin, psi- taraxasterol
Uses - The entire plant is useful in medicine. The dry leaves and stems either smoked or the smoke by burning the plant is inhaled for the quick relief of cough and Asthama. The milky juice is applied to the mouth of uterus as a abortificient in herbal medicine of tribals. It is poisonous in large doses causing dysentery and vomiting. --Leaves rubbed on the skin of elephants in the treatment of kesarayer disease