Morphological information

A small perennial trailing herb; stems slender, 15- 45 cm long; branches numerous, prostrate, rooting at the nodes, sparsely hirsute with white spreading hairs. Leaves 3- foliolate (the lower sometimes 1-foliolate); petioles 5- 6 mm long; stipules ovate, acuminate, 3- 4 mm long, persistent. Leaflets membranous, obovate, cuneate, 5- 6 by 4- 5 mm, truncate or emarginated, rarely rounded, glabrous above, more or less hairy beneath; petiolules 1.5- 2 mm long. Flowers 1- 5 (usually 3), fascicled in the axils of the leaves; pedicels 6 mm long, clothed with long white hairs; teeth lanceolate, longer then the campanulate tube, ciliate with long white hairs. Corolla 5 mm long, pink occasionally white; standard 2.5 mm broad, broadly ovovate, cuneate, produced into a long slender claw. Pods 10- 15 by 3- 4 mm, the upper edge straight, the lower intended; joints 3- 5, as broad as long puberculous. The upper edge straight, the lower rounded.

Flowering                : March-October.

Fruiting                    :

History                    :

Parts                       : Leaves.

Status                     : Low risk.

Phytochemistry      : Indole 3- acetic acid, tyramine, N, N- dimethyltryptophan, hypaphorine, trigonelline, choline and betain isolated (Phytochemistry 1971, 10, 3312); four phenethylamines five indole- 3- alkylamines, stachydrine, trigonelline, choline and betaine isolated from roots (Planta Med. 1973, 23, 321).

 

Medicinal

The fresh leaves are applied to wounds and abscesses that do not heal well. They are used internally as a galactagogue. A paste of the bruised leaves with kamala is applied to indolent sores and itch. In the mofussil, the fresh juice of the plant is given to children for cough.In Ceylon, it is used in dysentery, in the gold coast it is recommended both as a laxative and as a cure for dysentery.

 

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