Calamus rotang (common rattan)
A scandant slender shrub with cylindrical uniformly thick yellowish white stems armed with short flat spines on leaf sheaths, leaf sheaths glabrous, hollowed below, ochrea short, truncate, margined with small straight or recurved spines having laterally compressed bases, rachis near the base flat and smooth sbove, channeled at the sides to receive the leaflets, trigonous upwards, armed below along the middle, leaflets very numerous, equidistant, 1-ribbed, the rib bearing scattered bistles; flowers unisexual, male spadix very long, flagelliferous, spathes elongate tubular, female flowers scattered along the slender branches of the spadix; fruits seated on the minute perianth, subglobose, mucronate, scales many, pale yellow in vertical series. Flowering-fruiting February to May. (Ashok Sheth (Ed.). 2005 The herbs of ayurveda vol.1 Gujarat : Ashok Sheth. p214) |
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तस्याः किंचित्करधृतमिव प्राप्तवानीरशाखं हृत्वा नीलं सलिलवसनं मुक्तरोधोनितम्बम् । प्रस्थानं ते कथमपि सखे लम्बमानस्य भावि ज्ञातास्वादो विवृतजघनां को विहातुं समर्थः ॥ ४१ ॥ Like the lady river’s arms, Vānīra branches reach out |
At the Gambīrā river, in the cloud’s journey. Vānīra was actually holding on the water-clothes, but I could not make that poin clear in the translation. |
(c) Tomomi Sato 2013
Plants of Meghaduta 