Of the two pair of spines, one pair is long and one short. The cocci are very variable. Stigmatic lobes larger than the diameter of the styles.
Parts used : — The entire plant, and especially the fruit and leaves.
Uses : — In Hindoo Medicine, the fruits are regarded as cooling, diuretic, tonic and aphrodisiac, and are used in painful micturition, calculous affections, urinary disorders and impotence. They form one of the ten ingredients which constitute the Dashamûla of the Hindoo physicians (Dutt).
They are considered astringent, and Belle w states that they are taken by women to ensure fecundity, and an infusion of the stems taken for gonorrhœa (Stewart).
In the Gujrat district of the Punjab, it is used in diseases of the kidneys, suppression of urine, also in cough and diseases of the heart (Ibbetson).
In South of Europe, it is used as an aperient and diuretic. (O'Shaughnessy).
In Southern India, the fruit is highly valued as a diuretic. In many cases where this has been tried, the result was quite perceptible in the increase of the urinary secretion. There is another method of administration, in which the fruit and the root boiled with rice to form a medicated water, which is taken in large quantities (Ph. Ind.)
According to Moodeen Sheriff, the fruit and leaves are demulcent, diuretic and useful in cases of strangury, gleet and chronic cystitis. He recommends a decoction and the fresh juice of the leaves.
An infusion made from the fruit has been found very useful as a diuretic in gout, kidney disease and gravel ; also used largely in the Panjab as an aphrodisiac (F. F. Perry, in Watts' Dictionary).
205. T. alatus, Delile. h.f.b.i , i. 423.
Vern. : — Nindo-trikund, gokhuri-kalan (H.); Lotak, bakhra, hasak (Pb.) ; Latak (Sind).
Habitat: — Sindh and Punjab, at Multan.
