Description

Indian Pavetta is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It comprises about 350 species of trees, evergreen shrubs and sub-shrubs. It is found in woodlands, grasslands and thickets in sub-tropical and tropical Africa and Asia. The plants are cultivated for their simple but variable leaves, usually opposite but also occur in triple whorls. The leaves are often membranous with dark bacterial nodules. Pavetta has small, white, tubular flowers, sometimes salviform or funnel-shaped with 4 spreading petal lobes. The flowers are carried on terminal corymbs or cymes.

Characteristics:

Indian Pavetta is an erect, nearly smooth or somewhat hairy shrub 2 to 4 meters or more in height. The leaves are elliptic-oblong to elliptic-lanceolate, 6-15 cm long, and pointed at both ends. The flowers are white, rather fragrant, and borne in considerable numbers in hairy terminal panicles which are 6-10 cm long. The sepals are very small, and toothed. The flower-tube is slender and about 1.5 cm long, with obtuse petals about half the length of the tube. The flowers attract butterflies and insects. The fruit is black when dry, somewhat rounded, and about 6 mm in diameter.

Medicinal Uses:

The bark, in decoction, or pulverized, is administered, especially to children, to correct visceral obstructions. The decocted leaves are used externally to alleviate the pains caused by haemorrhoids. The root, pulverized and mixed with the ginger and rice-water, is given in dropsy. A local fomentation with the leaves is useful in relieving the pain of piles.