44. Cocculus Leaeba, D.C.

The medicinal plant Cocculus Leaeba 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. 102.

Vernacular:—Vallur, illar-billar; parwatti (Guj.); vehri (Pb. and Sindhi); Ullar-billar (Sindh).

Habitat:—Drier parts of Western India, the Punjab, Sindh, and the Carnatic valleys,; below Simla, plains of India ascending to 3,000 ft.

Part used:—The whole plant.

Botanical description:—A climbing shrub.

Branchlets: puberulous, long, slender; leaves very variable, linear-oblong, oblong or trapezoid, entire or 3-5-lobed, glabrate, usually obtuse and mucronate; base cuneate, rounded, young, hoary, old, often glaucous on both surfaces.

Pedicels: ⅙-¼ in.

Male flowers: fascicled in small sessile clusters in the axils, and on woody tubercles. Females solitaiy, 1-3, sessile, at the end of short axillary stalks.

Drupes: dark purple, 1/12—⅙ in.

Medicinal uses:—It is used in Sindh and Afghanistan in the treatment of intermittent fevers and as a substitute for Cocealus Indicus.