Gaertn.Nelumbium speciosum
Family: Nymphaeaceae.
Habitat: Throughout warmer parts of India, up to 1,800 m.
English: East Indian Lotus, Sacred Lotus.
Ayurvedic: Kamala, Padma, Nalina, Aravinda, Jalaja, Raajeeva, Pushkara, Ambuja, Abja, Pankaja. Pundarika (whitish), kokanada (red), Indivara (Bluish).
Unani: Used as a substitute for Nilofar.
Siddha/Tamil: Thaamarai, Ambel.
Action: Filament—astringent and haemostatic. Prescribed for bleeding piles and menorrhagia. Flowers—a decoction is given in cholera, fever, strangury, palpitation of heart. Rhizomes—given in piles, chronic dyspepsia and dysentery; applied externally to cutaneous eruptions, scabies and ringworm. Rhizome-arrowroot— given to children in diarrhoea and dysentery. Root—astringent, diuretic, antiemetic, cooling. Used for dysentery, dyspepsia, piles, skin affections and for its anticoagulant properties.
The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia ofIn- dia recommends dried rhizomes, with roots attached at nodes, in syncope and vertigo.Flowers yielded quercetin, luteolin and their glycosides and kaempferol glycosides. Leaves gave quercetin, iso- quercitrin and leucoanthocyanidin.Isoquinoline alkaloid, nuciferin, is neuroleptic. Active agents in the leaves are the alkaloids, nelumbin and roe- merin.
Dosage: Dried flower—12-24 g for decoction (API, Vol. II); rhizomes— 5-10 m powder; 10-20 ml juice (API, Vol. III). Seed—3-6 g powder; flower—10-20 ml juice. (CCRAS.)... nelumbo nucifera
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