The white beauty - Abrus precatorius

Abrus precatorius (White seeded variety) 

Family: Fabaceae
• Tamil: Gundumani, Kundamani
• Telugu: Gurivinda (గురివింద)
• Kannada: Gulaganji (ಗುಲಗಂಜಿ)
• Malayalam: Kunni; Kunnikkuru (കുന്നിക്കുരു)
• Marathi: Gunj (गुंज)
• Sanskrit: Gunja (गुंजा)
• Hindi : Ratti, Gaungchi, Gunchi, Gunja (गुंजा)
Common names: jequirity, Crab's eye, rosary pea, precatory pea, John Crow Bead, Indian licorice.

The leaves and roots have great medicinal uses and are widely used.

The plant is a slender twiner with alternately placed compound leaves. Each leaf has about 20 pairs of narrow, oblong leaflets, looking like a delicate feather. The pale rose coloured flowers are arranged as a raceme.Fruits are short, inflated pods, splitting open when mature to reveal the round, hard and shiny seeds which are white in colour. The most poisonous part of the plant is the seed. Seeds are extremely poisonous if cracked; a single one, if swallowed leads to acute poisoning and can be fatal.

The plant is used in some traditional medicine to treat scratches and sores, and wounds caused by pets and is also used with other ingredients to treat leucoderma. The leaves are used for their anti-suppurative properties. They are ground with lime and applied on acne sores, boils, and abscesses. The plant is also traditionally used to treat tetanus, and to prevent rabies.

A tea is made from the leaves and used to treat fevers, coughs and colds.
Paste prepared from the roots is applied on the abdomen to reduce the pain.
Graying of hair: Grind the leaves and seeds of Abrus precatorius. Extract juice from the paste. Apply the juice on hair as oil once a day one hour before taking bath. Apply for 3-4 days to stimulate the growth of hairs and to treat graying of hair.
A delicious herbal rasam is prepared from the leaves of this plant which produces white fruits. These leaves are sweet in taste.

I will meet you in the next posts with the delicious dishes prepared from this herb.