38. Tinospora tomentosa, Miers.

The medicinal plant Tinospora tomentosa is a member of the Menispermaceae (moonseed) family. This page includes its habitat, botanical descption, medicinal uses (eg., Ayurveda), chemical constituents and history of use in modern and ancient India.

Index in Flora of British India (Hooker): 1. 96.

Vernacular:—Padma-guluncha (B).

Habitat:—Tropical thickets in Bengal; always rare.

Botanical description:—A climbing shrub.

Bark: pustular. Shoots tomentose.

Leaves: orbicular-cordate, more or less 3-lobed, pubescent above, tomentose beneath, 3-6 in. diam.

Petioles: as long.

Racemes: usually simple, solitary or fascicled.

Flowers: fascicled in the axils or deciduous bracts.

Sepals: 6. 2-seriate, inner longer, membranous.

Petals: 6, smaller.

Male-flowers: : Stamens 6, filaments free, tips thickened. Anther cells obliquely adnate, bursting obliquely.

Female-flowers: Staminodes 6, clavate; Ovaries 3. Stigmas forked.

Drupes: 1-3, dorsally convex, ventrally flat; fusiform, orange-yellow.

Endocarp: tubercled, dorsally keeled, ventrally concave.

Seed: grooved ventrally or curved round the intruded sub-2-1 obed endocorp.

Albumen: ventrally ruminate. Cotyledons foliaceous, ovate, spreading.

Medicinal uses:—It possesses the tonic properties of the common Guluncha, T. cordifolia (Prain’s Flora of the Sunderbans, Page 286).