Portions of Dried Tuber - Specimen details

Portions of Dried Tuber - Specimen details

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Catalogue Number: 34506

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Plant Name 191.01 ARACEAE Amorphophallus silvaticus Entry Book Number 182.1886
Artefact Name Portions of Dried Tuber Vernacular Name
Iso Country India TDWG Region India
Parts Held Portions of Dried Tuber Geography Description Bombay
Uses Portions of Dried TuberUse: User: Not defined TDWG use
Storage Bottles, boxes etc Related Items
Donor Col & Ind Exhib Donor No
Donor Date Donor Notes India Museumx0Dx0A
Collector Collector No
Collection Notes Collection Date
Exhibition Expedition
Number Components Publication
Notes: Label source: This arum occurs as a wild plant on the banks of streams and also in several cultivated forms. It is the Surana & olla of Sanskrit writers. The dried tubers of the wild plant peeled and cut into segments are sold in the shops under the name, of Madan-Mast. The segments are usually threaded upon a string and are about as large as those of an orange, of a reddish brown colour, shrunken or wrinkled, brittle and hard in dry weather the surface is mammillated. When soaked in water they swell up a, nd become very soft and friable, developing a sickly smell. A microscopial examination shows that the root is almost entirely composed of starch. Madan-Mast has a mucilaginous taste and is faintly bitter and acrid, it is supposed to have restorative power, s and is on much request. Synantherias sylvatica Schott is regarded by the Hindus as a kind of wild Durana and with the wild form of Amorphophopallus campanulatus bears the Sanskrit name of Vajra-Kanda 'Thunder-bolt' (Pharm Indica iii 546) It seems probab, le that one of the forms of this plant affords the Madan Mast of the Bombay Druggists described by Dr Dymock (Mat. Med. Ind. 664) under the name of Amorphophallus sylvaticus. A note which Dr D. has kindly supplied would seem to justify this inference whi, le on the other hand it is poss that the tubers of Arum sylvaticum Roxb (now known as S. sylvatica) affords the drug referred to by Dr D the more so since that sp is native of Bombay. The name Madam Must appears however, to be also given to A campanulatu, s and in Madras to Artabotrys odoratissima R Br. (Dict. of Ec. Prod. India)
Determinations:191.01 ARACEAE Amorphophallus silvaticus (Roxb.) Kunth.
    191.01 ARACEAE Arum sylvaticum Roxb.
    191.01 ARACEAE Synantherias sylvatica Schott

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