Common name: Asthma Weed, Common spurge, Cats hair • Hindi: बड़ा दुधी Bara
dudhi • Manipuri: Pakhamba maton • Marathi: दुधी Dudhi • Tamil: Ammam Paccharisi • Malayalam: Nelapalai • Telugu:
Nanabalu • Kannada: Achchedida • Bengali: Barokarni • Konkani: Dudurli
Botanical name: Euphorbia hirta
Family: Euphorbiaceae (Castor family)
Geographical distribution
The plant occurs throughout India as a
weed.
Introduction: Asthma Weed is a slender-stemmed, annual hairy
plant with many branches, growing up to 40 cms tall, reddish or purplish in
color. Leaves are opposite, elliptic-oblong to oblong-lancelike, 1-2.5 cm long,
blotched with purple in the middle, toothed at the edge. Flowers, purplish to
greenish in color, dense, axillary, short-stalked clusters or crowded cymes,
about 1 mm in length. Capsules are broadly ovoid, hairy, three-angled, about
1.5 cm.
Chemical composition
The leaves contain dehydroellagitannis,
quercetin, kaempferol and azelin.
Medicinal uses: Asthma weed has traditionally been used in Asia to
treat bronchitic asthma and laryngeal spasm, though in modern herbalism it is
more used in the treatment of intestinal amoebic dysentery. It should not be
used without expert guidance, however, since large doses cause
gastro-intestinal irritation, nausea and vomiting. The
plant is used for colic trouble, dysentery, cough, asthma and worms.
Folk medicinal uses
Juice of the plant is given in dysentery
and colic. Whole plant is ground in water and given in the dose of 30-40 ml.
thrice daily for 3 days, in case of blood dysentery.
Flowers :
August-November
NOTE : Euphorbia
thymifolia Linn. (sy. E. prostrata Ait.) has the same Folk medicinal
uses as Euphorbia hirta Linn.
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