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CLASSIFICATION

ORDER	: Lamiales
FAMILY	: Acanthaceae
GENUS	: Rhenacanthus
SPECIES	: nasutus
BOTANICAL NAME	: Rhenacanthus nasutus (L.) Kurz
SYNONYMS	: ---
COMMON NAME	: Snake jasmine.
TAMIL NAME	: Nagamalli
HINDI NAME	: Palakjuhi

PLANT DESCRIPTION

HABIT:  Native to India, this useful plant is a slender, erect, branched, somewhat hairy shrub 1-2 m in height.

LEAVES:  The leaves are oblong, 4-10 cm in length, and narrowed and pointed at both ends. INFLORESCENCE:  The inflorescence is a spreading, leafy, hairy panicle with the flowers usually in clusters.

FLOWERS:  The calyx is green, hairy, and about 5 mm long. The corolla-tube is greenish, slender, cylindric, and about 2 cm long. The flowers is 2-lipped; the upper lip is white, erect, oblong or lancelike, 2-toothed at the apex, and about 3 mm in both length and width; and the lower lip is broadly obovate, 1.1-1.3 cm in both measurements, 3-lobed, and white, with a few, minute, brownish dots near the base.

FRUIT:  The fruit (capsule) is club-shaped and contains 4 seeds.

MEDICINAL USES

In India the fresh root and leaves, bruised and mixed with lime juice, are a useful remedy for ringworm and other skin affections.

The seeds also are efficacious in ringworm.

The root-bark is a remedy for dhobie’s itch. In Sind it is said to possess extraordinary aphrodisiacal powers, the roots boiled in milk being much employed by Hindu practitioners.

The roots are believed n some parts of India to be an antidote to the bites of poisonous snakes.

IMAGES

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