WHO monographs on selected medicinal plants - travolekar.ru

<strong>WHO</strong> <strong>monographs</strong> on selected medicinal plants
horizontal racemes that arise from the rhizome and run horizontally along
the ground. The fruit is inferior, ovoid or oblong, nearly ellipsoidal, capsule
plump or slightly shrunken, the seeds of which are covered by an aril (14).
Plant material of interest: dried seed
(in dried or nearly dried fruit)
General appearance
Usually in agglutinated groups of 2–7 seeds. Each irregularly angular, 3-
to 4-sided, oblong, ovoid; 2–4 mm long, up to 3 mm broad; pale orange to
dark reddish-brown; usually enveloped by a thin colourless membranous
aril externally, transversely wrinkled but not minutely pitted; hilum depressed;
raphe indicated by a channel extending on one side from base to
apex; hard; internally, whitish, showing a thin dark testa, a whitish starchy
perisperm grooved on one side, and in the centre a small yellowish translucent
endosperm, surrounding a paler minute embryo (1–3, 5–7).
Fruit: Inferior, ovoid or oblong, nearly ellipsoidal, capsule plump or
slightly shrunken; 8–20 mm, but most fruits are 10–15 mm long, 5–10 mm
in diameter; green to pale buff, sometimes yellowish-grey, mostly 3-sided;
externally, smooth or longitudinally striated; base, rounded and may bear
the remains of the stalk; apex, more or less blunt and sometimes crowned
by a short beak formed of the remains of the floral parts; interior longitudinally
divided into 3 loculi, each loculus is an adherent mass of two rows
of 3–7 small seeds attached to the axile placenta (2, 5–7). According to
Evans (15), four varieties of fruits are available: “Mysore”, “Malabar”,
“Mangalore” and “Alleppy”.
Organoleptic properties
Odour: aromatic; taste: aromatic, pungent and slightly bitter (1–3, 5–8).
Microscopic characteristics
Aril of several layers of elongated, more or less collapsed, flattened, thinwalled
parenchyma cells containing small rounded or oval droplets of oil.
Testa with an outer epidermis of long, narrow fusiform cells, 20–30 μm
wide, having slightly thickened undulating walls, followed by a layer of
collapsed parenchymatous cells, with brownish contents, becoming
2–3 layers in the region of the raphe, composed of large thin-walled, rectangular
cells containing volatile oil; a band of 2–3 layers of parenchymatous
cells and an inner epidermis of thin-walled flattened cells. Inner integument
consists of 2 layers of cells, an outer layer of yellowish to
reddish-brown, rectangular, strongly lignified sclereids, about 40 μm long
and 20 μm wide, nearly filled with a small warty nodule of silica and an in-
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