Ghora-gulancha

Ghora-gulancha

Scientific name: Tinospora cordifolia

English name: TinosporaGulancha.

Local names: Ghora-gulancha, Nim-gulancha.

Botanical Description

Habit: A woody climber, glabrous, leafless at the time of flowering.

Stem: Stem and branches striate when young, later developing a smooth, thin pergamentaceous bark which sometimes detaches, long filiform aerial roots present.

Leaves: Leaves thinly papyraceous, broadly cordate, 3-14 x 3.5-15.0 cm, apex abruptly acuminate, basal sinus often very broad, margin entire, veins palmately 4-7 nerved at the base, petioles 3-10 cm long.

Inflorescence: Male inflorescence pseudo-racemose, usually solitary, 5-13 cm long, axillary, arising from the axils of leaf scars on old leafless stem or axils of the leaves, few-flowered in close cluster.

Female inflorescence similar to male, flowers usually arising singly along axis.

Flowers:

 Male flowers: minute, yellow, pedicels very slender, 3-4 mm long, sepals usually 6, outer 3 smaller, ovate, concave, 1.0-1.5 mm long, inner 3 larger, elliptic, concave, distinctly nerved, 2-4 x 2.0-2.7 mm, petals 6, rhombic-unguiculate or cuneate, 1.5-2.5 mm long, lateral edges incurved, sometimes lower part externally papillose, stamens 6, free, 1.5-3.0 mm long, anthers oblong.

Female flowers: pedicels c 5 mm long, sepals as in male, petals broadly spathulate, lower part externally papillose, 2.5 mm long, staminodessubulate, 1.5 mm long, carpels 3, free, stalked, broadly ellipsoidal, 1.5 mm long, stigmas capitate.

Fruits: Drupes red, c 2 mm long, peduncles 4-7 mm long, endocarp elliptic or subrotund, thin, bony, 6-7 mm long, rounded at both ends, dorsally with a weak ridge, ventrally flattened with small elliptic aperture leading to deeply intrusive condyle.

Economic Importance: Stem is bitter, stomachic, antiperiodic, antipyretic, powdered and made into an infusion use, as alternative and aphrodisiac. Starch from roots andstems is nutrient, used in chronic diarrhoea and chronic dysentery. Juice of fresh plant is diuretic and useful in gonorrhoea. An antiviral property against Ranikhetdisease poultry has been reported.