Disclaimer : This databank is curated from literature and may not claim for any medications or directly use of plants without any prior knowledge or consultation of physician.



Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family

MH153 : Heliotropium supinum L.

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Melghat's Flora's Serial No. : 314  
Class : Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons
Order : Lamiales
Family : Boraginaceae - Borage family
Genus : Heliotropium L. - heliotrope
Species : Heliotropium supinum L.
Plant Location in Melghat : In drying ponds, shallow depressions, stream and river beds  
Plant Category : Herbs  
Plant's Current Status : -  
Plant Family : Boraginaceae  

 
Plant Common Name : Dwarf Heliotrope, Prostrate Heliotrope, Spreading Heliotrope
 
Synonym : Piptoclaina supina
Heliotropium ambiguum DC.
Heliotropium capense Sw. ex Lehm.
Heliotropium coromandelianum Raddi ex DC.
Heliotropium europaeum Forssk.
Heliotropium hirsutum E. D. Clarke
Heliotropium malabaricum Retz.
Lithospermum heliotropoides Forssk.
Piptoclaina malabarica (Retz.) G. Don.


Description : Prostrate branched annual. Branches brown-tomentose with dense appressed hairs up to 1 mm long. Leaves petiolate, greyish white with dense hairs; petiole up to 15 mm long. Lamina 10-20 x 5-12 mm, ovate to obovate or elliptic, cuneate to ± oblique, entire-undulate, obtuse, nerves impressed on upper surface. Inflorescence lateral and terminal, 2-7 cm long; flowers uniseriate. Calyx deciduous, ± 2.5 mm long, up to 5 mm in fruit, ¼th partite into ± obtuse lobes, densely hairy. Corolla tube 34 mm long, retroresely hairy to the outside, glabrous within lobes oblong, shallow, erect. Anthem c. 1 mm long, narrowed towards the apex, attached c. 1.5 mm from the corolla base. Stigma c. 0.6 mm long, conical; stigmatic ring prominent. Style ± stigma length, with few retrorse hairs. Ovary glabrous. Fruit globose, enclosed in the persistent calyx. Nutlets c. 2.5 mm long, ovoid in outline, glabrous, back rugulose and minutely tubercied. Fl. Per.: December-January.
 
Curated Medicinal Use / Activity : The pulped plant is mixed with water and applied to tumours. The pyrrolizidine alkaloids heliotrine and lasiocarpine have been isolated, and extracts have been tested as a control agent for Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, a chickpea disease, with limited success. eczema.
 
Plant's Phytochemicals : Heliotrine
Lasiocarpine

Reference : ~ Dhore MA and Joshi PA; "Flora of Melghat Tiger Reserve"; Directorate, Project Tiger, Melghat (1988); PMID :