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CLASSIFICATION

ORDER	: Fabales
FAMILY	: Fabaceae
GENUS	: Tephrosia Pers.
SPECIES	: purpurea (L.) Pers.
BOTANICAL NAME	: Tephrosia purpurea (L.) Pers.
SYNONYMS	: Cracca purpurea L.
COMMON NAME	: Wild indigo.
TAMIL NAME	: Kolinchi
HINDI NAME	: Sharpunkha

PLANT DESCRIPTION

HABIT :  An erect shrub or undershrub, much branched with stems and branches more or less hairy with appressed hairs.

LEAVES :  Stipulate, stipules lanceolate, erect or reflexed, hairy. Leaflets 11-21, often 5-17, oblanceolate or fairly broadly obovate, glabrous above, fairly densely hairy beneath.

INFLORESCENCE :  Flowers in lax racemes, which are leaf-opposed and lax.

FLOWERS :  Calyx 4 mm long, corolla about twice as long as the calyx, deep purple.

FRUIT :  Pods slightly curved, mucronate, finally glabrescent. Seeds 5-6.

FLOWERING AND FRUITING TIME :  September - October

MEDICINAL USES

According to Ayurveda, plant is digestible, anthelmintic, alexiteric, antipyretic, alternative, cures diseases of liver, spleen, heart, blood, tumours, ulcers, leprosy, asthma, poisoning etc.

According to Unani system of medicine, root is diuretic, allays thirst, enriches blood, cures diarrhea, useful in bronchitis, asthma, liver, spleen diseases, inflammations, boils and pimples; Leaves are tonic to intestines and a promising appetizer.

Good in piles, syphilis and gonorrhoea.

IMAGES

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