Flacourtia inermisDescription: This shrub or small tree has dark green, alternate, simple leaves. Its fruits are bright red and contain six or more seeds.Habitat and Distribution: This plant is a native of the Philippines but is widely cultivated for its fruit in other areas. It can be found in clearings and at the edges of the tropical rain forests of Africa and Asia.Edible Parts: Eat the fruit raw or cooked.
Linn.
Family: Plumbaginaceae.
Habitat: Cultivated in gardens throughout India; also found wild in Peninsular India.
English: Ceylon Leadwort, Leadwort.
Ayurvedic: Chitraka, Agni, Vahni, Jvalanaakhya, Krshaanu, Hutaasha, Dahana, Sikhi.
Unani: Sheetraj Hindi.
Siddha/Tamil: Chittramoolam.
Action: Root—intestinal flora normalizer, stimulates digestive processes; used for dyspepsia. Root paste is applied in order to open abscesses; a paste prepared with milk, vinegar or salt and water, is used externally in leprosy and other obstinate skin diseases. A cold infusion is used for influenza and black-water fever.
Key application: In sprue, malabsorption syndrome, piles and inflammatory diseases of ano-rectum. (The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India.)The root yielded naphthoquinone derivatives, plumbagin being the most important active principle.The root extract, after processing for plumbagin enhancement, has been used in a number of drug formulations for liver ailments. Experimentally, plumbagin prevented the accumulation of triglycerides in liver and aorta and regressed atheromatous plaques and abdominal aorta. The chloroform extract of the root showed significant activity against pencillin-resistant (also non-pencillin resistant) strains of Neisseria gonorrhoea. (The root is used for treating sexually transmitted diseases in traditional Indian medicine.)In Siddha medicine, in Tamil Nadu, the plant is an ingredient in a number of drug formulations for treating cancers of the uterus, breast, lungs and oral cavity, in addition to haemorrhoids.Plumbagin is abortifacient, antiovu- latory; causes selective testicular lesions in dogs; in lower doses it behaves like a spindle poison, in higher concentration exhibits radiomimetic nu- cleotoxic and cytotoxic effects.
Dosage: Detoxified root—1-2 g powder. (API, Vol. I.)... plumbago zeylanica
a hyperfunctioning, usually benign, *adenoma of the thyroid gland, which can be palpated and appears as a ‘hot nodule’ on radioactive thyroid scanning. Treatment is to control the nodule with antithyroid drugs and then remove it surgically or destroy it permanently with radioactive iodine. [H. S. Plummer (1874–1937), US physician]... plummer’s disease
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