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Wrinkled Marshweed
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Wrinkled Marshweed
P Native Photo: N Arun Kumar
Common name: Wrinkled Marshweed
Botanical name: Limnophila rugosa    Family: Plantaginaceae (Plantain family)
Synonyms: Herpestis rugosa, Gratiola rugosa

Wrinkled Marshweed is an erect, semi-aquatic, fragrant, perennial herb, growing up to 50 cm tall. Stem is simple or branched, rooting at lower nodes, then ascending up to 16 cm high, bristly. Leaves are ovate-lanceshaped to ovate-elliptic, 1.6-4 x 0.7-1.7 cm, tapering to base, somewhat pointed at tip, entire to rounded toothed-minutely toothed, penninerved, with nerves impressed above, hairless to rough above, hairy on nerves beneath; leaf-stalk 7-10 mm long, densely hairy. Flowers are borne solitary in leaf-axils, stalkless, blue with yellow in the throat. Sepals are divided to base, unequal, lanceshaped, up to 7 x 1 mm, tapering, minutely bristly without. Flowers are up to 1 cm long, hairy outside. Capsule is broadly ovoid, 5 mm long, invested by longer sepals. Wrinkled Marshweed is found in SE Asia. In India it is found from Punjab to Sikkim, NE India till altitudes of 900 m, and in South India. Flowering: August-January.
Medicinal uses: A decoction of the leaves, combined with Ocimum basilicum, is drunk as a treatment for mild gonorrhoea and impotence. The plant is used in the treatment of coughs and colds. Both a decoction and a steam-bath of the aromatic leaves are used to cure itching eyes.

Identification credit: N Arun Kumar Photographed in Gaindikhata, Uttarakhand.

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