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CLASSIFICATION

ORDER	: Solanales
FAMILY	: Solanaceae
GENUS	: Solanum L.
SPECIES	: trilobatum L.
BOTANICAL NAME	: Solanum trilobatum L.
SYNONYMS	: ---
COMMON NAME	: Red pea eggplant.
TAMIL NAME	: Tuthuvalai.
HINDI NAME	: ---

PLANT DESCRIPTION

HABIT:  Red Pea Eggplant is a slender prickly scrambling shrub, with prickles curved, broad-based, yellowish and numerous along the stems, otherwise almost hairless.

LEAVES:  Leaves are rounded-ovate in outline, bluntly 3-5-lobed, 2-7 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, hairless or slightly star-shaped, with a few prickles along the leaf-stalk and midrib.

FLOWERS:  Flowers are borne in 3-9-flowered clusters in leaf-axils, on short flower-cluster- stalk. Flowers are 1.2-1.6 cm long, deeply lobed, star-shaped-velvet-hairy outside, purple, reflexed; stamens protruding, anthers 7 mm long, yellow. Flower-stalks are 1-2 cm long, widely divergent. Sepal-cup 3 mm long, with narrow teeth, sparsely velvet-hairy outside.

FRUITS:  Fruits are scarlet, round, about 1.5 cm in diameter.

MEDICINAL USES

Solanum trilobatum is a widely used plant in the Indian indigenous systems of medicine. It is mainly used in the treatment of respiratory diseases like bronchial asthma.

In our present study, we report that the aqueous and alcoholic extracts of S. trilobatum exhibited inhibition of mast cell degranulation.

Thoothuvalai is widely used in the treatment of tuberculosis, bronchial asthma, difficulty in breathing, sinus, chest congestion and other respiratory problems.

IMAGES

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