RIDDHI (Tuber)
Riddhi consists of dried tuber of Habenaria intermedia D.Don (Fam. Orchidacem); a glabrous, small, erect, herbaceous plant found in temperate Himalayas, upto 2000 m commercial samples are usually processed in steam or boiling water and dried before marketing.
SYNONYMS
Sanskrit : Asvasini
Assamese : —
Bengali : —
English : —
Gujrati : —
Hindi : —
Kannada : —
Kashmiri : —
Malayalam : —
Marathi : —
Oriya : —
Punjabi : —
Tamil : —
Telugu : Jeevakamu
Urdu : —
DESCRIPTION
a) Macroscopic
Unprocessed tubers are 1.5 to 3.5 cm long and 1.0 to 2.5 cm thick, oval, obovate or oblong in shape; buff to yellowish brown, with shrunken surface, covered with numerous fine hairs; internally white to creamish in colour; showing scars of mrial portion at the apex and beaked or sometime round base; odourless; taste, palatable and mucilaginous. Processed tubers; with scar or attached stem on top; 1.5 to 3.0 cm in length and 0.5 to 1.5 cm in width, conical, tapering to a beaked base, surface rough, occasionally grooved, grayish-brown; very hard to break; fractured surface show creamy interior; taste palatable and mucilaginous; odourless.
b) Microscopic
T.S. of unprocessed tuber shows 2 to 3 layered epidermis with long unicellular hairs, followed by a distinct exodermis and 15 to 20 layers of cortical parenchyma, cells of which in proximity of exodermis are smaller as compared to the remaining cells of cortex region; a few parenchymatous cells of outer cortex contain bundles of rephides. It is followed by a typical polystelic condition consisting of 14 to 16 diarch steles arranged in a ring and 7 to 10 steles distributed among the parenchyma in the central region; schizogenous mucilage canals lined by an epithelium of usually 6 to 9 cells are found distributed throughout the parenchymatous tissue; small and large starch grains mostly of simple type are found distributed in abundance throughout the parenchyma as well as in the epithelial cells of mucilage canals; the smaller ones are mostly found with hilum as a point or cleft and large one are round to oval with centrally situated hilum in the form of a point or cleft or triangular or 2 to 3 stellate cleft. The processed tubers show no anatomical changes except the gelatinized starch grains.
Powder – The powder shows the presence of a large number of starch grains, long needle shaped raphides in bundles or isolated; fragments of root hairs, mucilage canals, parenchymatous cells and vessels with scalariform thickening.
IDENTITY, PURITY AND STRENGTH
Foreign matter Not more than 2 per cent, Appendix 2.2.2.
Total Ash Not more than 5 per cent, Appendix 2.2.3.
Acid-insoluble ash Not more than 1 per cent, Appendix 2.2.4.
Alcohol-soluble extractive Not less than 14 per cent, Appendix 2.2.6.
Water-soluble extractive Not less than 22 per cent, Appendix 2.2.7.
T.L.C.
T.L.C. of alcoholic extract on Silica gel ‘G’ precoated plates (Merck), using Toluene : Methanol (84:16) shows in visible light four spots at Rf. 0.41, 0.35 (both light yellow, 0.22 and 0.16 (both pink); under UV rays (254nm) three spots appear at Rf. 0.79 (white), 0.67 (dark blue) and 0.39 (yellow), on exposure to iodine vapours five spots appear at Rf.0.79, 0.41, 0.35, 0.22 and 0.16 (all yellow); on spraying with 5% vanillin sulphuric acid and heating the plate at 110oC for 10 minutes, nine spots appear at Rf. 0.79, 0.67, 0.61, 0.41, 0.39, 0.35, 0.22 and 0.19 ( all pink) and 0.16 (violet).
PROPERTIES AND ACTION
Rasa : Madhura
Guna : Guru, Picchila, Snigdha
Virya : Sita
Vipaka : Madhura
Karma : Pittahara, Rasayana, Tridosasamaka, Vatahara, Vrsya, Sukrajanana, Ojovardhaka
IMPORTANT FORMULATIONS – Asoka Ghrta, Amrtaprasa Ghrta, Dasamularista, Chagaladya Ghrta
THERAPEUTIC USES – Jvara, Ksaya, Raktavikara, Murccha
DOSE – 3-6 g.
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