Monday, March 16, 2009

Euphorbia nerifolia L.


English Name : Dog's Tongue

Family : Euphorbiaceae

Description
It is a small tree or shrub with large branches, fleshy glabrous and about 1.8 to 4.0 m high. Branches are jointed, cylindric or obscurely 5 angled with the pairs of stipular spines on tubercles or swelling of the branches. Leaves are deciduous, 10.0 to 20.0 cm long, fleshy, obovate-oblong or obovate or linear and rounded at the apex. Involucres are yellowish, the lateral ones of the cymes thickly pedicelled and hemispheric. The fruit is compressed and glabrous capsule. Seeds are smooth.

Habitat
Arid hilly areas containing many rocks.

Parts Used : Stem, latex, root and leaf

Herb Effects
The plant is bitter, pungent, laxative, carminative and alexipharmic. The milky juice of its stem is used as purgative, rubefacient and expectorant, laxative, expectorant and diuretic (latex); dilates bronchial tubes (latex and stem).

Active Ingredients
Nerifoliol and euphol (latex); taraxerol, friedelan-3-alpha-ol and -3-beta-ol (leaf and stem).

Medicinal Use
As a laxative and expectorant (latex); antidotes for scorpion and snakebites (root); to remove cutaneous affections, warts and in earache; in the cure of hydrophobia (herb juice)).

Reference

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