Linn. (Plumbaginaceae)
In the Nighantus, there are passages that describe the herbs burning and acrid properties. Religious mendicants attending fairs used the root to generate sores on their bodies in order to obtain alms. Several European writers of Indian drugs have mentioned this plant.
It is a perennial, sub-scandent shrub. The leaves are ovate and glabrous. The flowers are white, in elongated spikes. The capsules are oblong, pointed, contained in a viscid glandular persistent calyx
Plumbagin was isolated from the plant1.
No adverse effect is reported on use of this plant as a drug.
It is used as a stimulant, adjunct to other preparations. It enters in numerous compound preparations. In small doses it is a powerful stimulant of the mucus membrane of the digestive organs.
- 1. Planta med. 1980, (Supp.) 185.