Ayurvedic Medicinal Plants

Aatunarivela       ആട്ടുനാറിവിള

Family: Cleomaceae (Spider Flower family)
Genus: Cleome
Botanical name: Cleome viscosa
PLANT NAME IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
Sanskrit: Pasugandha
Hindi: Hulhul, Hurhur
English: Asian spider flower, Yellow spider flower, Cleome, Tickweed, Wild mustard, Cleome, Sticky cleome
Malayalam: Aatunarivela, Vela, Naivela, Aryavela

MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
Aatunarivela is a usually tall annual herb, up to a meter high, more or less hairy with glandular and eglandular hairs. Leaves are digitately compound, with 3-5 leaflets. Leaflets are obovate, elliptic-oblong, very variable in size, often 2-4 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm broad, middle one largest; petiole up to 5 cm long. Racemes elongated, up to 30 cm long, with corym¬bose flowers at the top and elongated mature fruits below, bracteate. Flowers 10-15 mm across, whitish or yellowish; pedicels 6-20 mm long; bracts foliaceous. Sepals oblong-lanceolate, 3-4 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, glandular-pubescent. Petals 8-15 mm long, 2-4 mm broad, oblong-obovate. Stamens 10-12 (rarely more, up to 20), not exceeding the petals; gynophore absent. Fruit 30-75 mm long, 3-5 mm broad, linear-oblong, erect, obliquely striated, tapering at both ends, glandular-pubescent, slender; style 2-5 mm long; seeds many, 1-1.4 mm in diam., glabrous with longitudinal striations and transverse ridges, dark brown.
The whole plants of Aatunarivela intestinal worms, colic, stomach upset, cardio myopathy, diarrhea, fever, inflammatins, liver diseases, bronchitis and dyspepsia.