Medicinal plant details
Pedalium murexL.
(Gokshura)
| Common name | Gokshura |
| Habit | Herb |
| Habitat | Wastelands |
| Parts used | Whole plant |
Synonyms
| Sr. No. | Synonyms |
|---|---|
| 1 | Murex burmanni Kuntze |
| 2 | Pedalium muricatum Salisb. |
| 3 | Pedalium microcarpum (Klotzsch) Decne. |
| 4 | Rogeria microcarpa Klotzsch |
Taxonomical information
| Kingdom | Viridiplantae |
| Phylum | Streptophyta |
| Class | Magnoliopsida |
| Order | Lamiales |
| Family | Pedaliaceae |
| Genus | Pedalium |
| Species | Pedalium murex L. |
Vernacular names
| Sanskrit | Brihat gokshura |
| English | Land Cattrops |
| Hindi | Bada gokhshura, Gokhru |
| Kannada | Dodda neggilamullu |
| Marathi | Hatticharatte, mothe-gokharu |
| Malayalam | Ananerinnil |
| Bengali | Baraghokru |
| Tamil | Anainerinji, Peru-nerunji |
| Telugu | enuga-palleru-mullu |
| Urdu |
Morphology
Annual succulent, much branched, glandular herb up to 60 cm tall. Leaves which are simple, alternate, 1-4.5 cm long and fleshy with dark glands at the bottom. Flowers are yellow in colour, solitary, axillary with 1-2 mm long pedicel, increasing up to 4 mm in fruit. Fruits are pale yellowish to brown, ovoid, indehiscent hard drupe, 1-1.8 cm long, 0.5-1 cm broad, and spine 2-4 mm long. Seeds are oblong, mucilaginous, and sometimes sweet in taste
Distribution
Globally distributed in tropical Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. In India, it is distributed in the states of Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu
Medicinal uses
Urinogenital system such as gonorrhea, dysuria; vesicular calculi, cough, asthma, pain, skin diseases and heart troubles, piles and leprosy
References
| 1 | Kalwij, J. M. (2012). Review of 'The Plant List, a working list of all plant species'. Journal of Vegetation Science, 23, 998-1002. |
| 2 | Vattakaven, T., George, R. M., Balasubramanian, D., Rejou-Mechain, M., Muthusankar, G., Ramesh, B. R., and Prabhakar, R. (2016). India Biodiversity Portal: An integrated, interactive and participatory biodiversity informatics platform. Biodiversity Data Journal, 4, e10279. |
| 3 | Das, D. (2013). Pedalium murex L.(Pedaliaceae): a new record of Purba Medinipur District to the State Of West Bengal. IOSR J Bus Manage, 13, 54-56. |
| 4 | Patel, D.K., Laloo, D., Kumar, R., Hemalatha, S., (2011) Pedalium murex Linn.: an overview of its phytopharmacological aspects. Asian Pacific journal of tropical medicine. 4, 748-755 |
| 5 | Chaudhary, G., and Kaushik, N. (2017). Phytochemical and pharmacological studies in Pedalium murex L. Phytochemistry reviews, 16, 921-934. |