Aerva lanata (Mountain knotgrass) – Kapurijadi – complete detail. Description of Aerva lanata (Mountain knotgrass). The stems are mostly straggling and sprawling and spread widely, sometimes as much as 5 feet in length. It has many medicinal properties like diuretic, anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic, anti-diabetic, ant parasitic, antimicrobial, hepoprotective, anti-urolithiasis, antiasthmatic, antifertility and hypolipidemic.
Stem and branches are densely woolly with whitish or yellowish, shaggy hairs. Local name of Aerva lanata is Gorakhganja, Kapurijadi, Gorakhbuti, Mountain knotgrass. Aerva lanata is a perennial herb. The flowers are used in dysentery, diarrhea and bronchitis. The seeds are used in the treatment of rheumatism and bronchitis.
Description
Aerva lanata is a perennial herb. Leaves alternate. The stems are mostly straggling and sprawling and spread widely, sometimes as much as 5 feet in length. Stem and branches are densely woolly with whitish or yellowish, shaggy hairs. Alternately arrange leaves are nearly circular to lanceshaped-elliptic, wedge-shaped at the base, rounded to sharp at the tip. Leaves are usually densely woolly on the lower surface and more thinly so above.
The flowers are normally self-pollinated. Flowers greenish white, very small, sessile, often bisexual, in small dense sub sessile axillary heads or spikes 6-13 mm long, often closely crowded and forming globose clusters; bracteoles 1.25 mm, long, membranous, broadly ovate, concave, apiculate. Flowering time is from May to October.
Classification
Common Name – Mountain knotgrass
Local Name – Gorakhganja, Kapurijadi, Gorakhbuti
Botanical Name – Aerva lanata
Kingdom – Plantae
Subkingdom – Tracheobionta
Division – Magnoliophyta
Class – Magnoliopsida
Subclass – Caryophyllidae
Order – Caryophyllales
Genus – Aerva forssk.
Family – Amaranthaceae
Distribution
Aerva lanata, Occurs throughout India as a common weed in fields and waste places. Aerva lanata is a common weed which grows wild everywhere in the plains of India and is also found to be growing in Arabia, Tropical Africa, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Java.
Uses
Aerva lanata has many medicinal properties like diuretic, anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic, anti-diabetic, ant parasitic, antimicrobial, hepoprotective, anti-urolithiasis, antiasthmatic, antifertility and hypolipidemic. The root is demulcent, diuretic and useful in strangury and treatment of headache. The juice of the roots juice is given to patients of liver congestion, jaundice, biliousness and dyspepsia. Local peoples also give decoction of the whole plant to cure pneumonia, typhoid and other prolonged fevers. In traditional medicine the plant is used in cough, strangury, headache and urolithiasis.
The flowers are used in dysentery, diarrhea and bronchitis. The seeds are used in the treatment of rheumatism and bronchitis. The leaves are used as anti-malarial in fever and to expel stones from kidney and also as an antidote for scorpion sting.
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