Family: Fabaceae
Synonym:Crotalaria roxburghiana DC.,Crotalaria stricta Roxb.
Bengali/Vernacular name:Kali jhunjhuni.
Tribal name: Jhunjhuni (Chakma).
English name:Hairy rattlepod, Hairy crotalaria.
Description of the plant: An erect annual herb, 30-60 cm high, simple or with a few ascending branches with short adpressed silky hairs. Leaves simple, 5-8 cm long, but in the linear form 12-15 cm long, acute, glabrous, obscurely silky beneath. Flowers 2-12 in lax terminal racemes, and solitary from leafy nodes.Calyx large, densely clothed with long brown silky hairs; corolla pale yellow, shorter than the calyx. Fruit a pod, sessile, oblong, glabrous, black when mature.
Plant parts used: Leaf, stem, root.
Herbal uses:A balm made with the juice extracted from the leaves of the plant and mustard oil, after warming it is used for massaging to the affected parts of the body three times a day until the paralysis is cured.
A fresh juice extracted from the roots of the plant is taken thrice a day (5 ml amount each time) for three days after adding little amount of salt to treat the cholera.
A paste made with the leaves and stems of the plant is applied to the boils twice a day for five days to treat the carbuncle.
A fresh juice extracted from the roots of the plant is taken twice a day (three tea spoons amount each time) until the tetanus is cured.
A powder made with the dried roots of the plant is taken with water twice a day (5 g amount each time) for two weeks to treat syphilis.
Cottonseed-sized pills made with the roots of the plant are taken with honey thrice a day (two pills each time) for fifteen days to treat haematuria.
The plant is used for the treatment of pain, convulsions, wounds, venereal sores, dysentery, and spider-lick.
Distribution: It occurs in Chittagong, Dhaka, Dinajpur, Comilla, Sylhet, and Rajshahi districts.
Is this plant misidentified? If yes, please tell us….
