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BLACH MUSALE Curculigo orchioides Amaryllidaceae

San: Musali; Hin: Kalimusali, Mushali; Ben: Talamuli; Mal: Nilappana; Guj: Musalikand

Tam: Nilapanai; Tel: Nelatadi Kelangu; Kan: Neladali

Importance

Musali is a small, geophilous herb, the tuberous rootstock of which is used as a

rejuvenating and aphrodisiac drug. It cures morbid vata and pitta, improves complexion and

is useful in general debility, deafness, cough, asthma, piles, skin diseases, impotence,

jaundice, urinary disorders, leucorrhoea and menorrhagia (Nadkarni, 1954; Aiyer and

Kolammal, 1963; Mooss, 1978). Rootstock is the officinal part and it enters into the

Ayurvedic formulations like Vidaryadighrta, Vidaryadi lehya, Marmagulika, Musalyadi

churna etc. The Pharmacognosy of C. orchioides has been discussed by Aiyer, Kolammal

(1963), Raghunathan, and Mitra (1982). A bibliographical study on C. orchioides has been

done by Pandey et al (1983).

Distribution

The plant is found in all districts of India from near sea level to 2300m altitude,

especially in rock crevices and laterite soil. It has been recorded to occur in the sub tropical

Himalayas from Kumaon eastwards ascending to 1800m, the Khasia hills, Bengal, Asssam,

Konkan, Kanara, the western peninsula and Madras extending south as far as a Cape

Comerin. It is also distributed in Sri Lanka, Japan, Malaysia and Australia.

Botany

Curculigo orchioides Gaertn. syn. C. malabarica Wight, C. brevifolia Dryand,

Hypoxis dulcis Stand belongs to the family Amaryllidaceae. Musali is a small herbaceous

plant with cylindrical rootstock. Leaves are simple, sessile, crowded on the short stem with

sheathing leaf bases. Flowers are bright yellow. Seeds are black, deeply grooved in wavy

lines.

A detailed description of the plant is as follows (Victoria, 1998).

Rootstock is straight, cylindrical, tuberous, 5-22cm long, 0.5-0.8 cm thick, brownish surfaces

marked with closely spaced prominent transverse wrinkles in the upper or basal half. It bears

a few stout lateral roots of 5 or more cm long. Lateral roots are dull white in colour and

spongy externally. The fresh cut surfaces of the rootstock has a starch white colour and

mucilaginous. A few fibrous roots also occur. Leaves are sessile or short petiolate with

sheathing bases, 15-45x1.2-2.5 cm size, linear or linear lanceolate, membranous, glabrouus

or sparsely sofly hairy and plicate in bud. The leaf tips when contacts the soil, develops roots

and produce adventitious buds. Inflorescence is axillary, scapose racemose, the scape very

short and hidden among the bases of leaves underground, clavte, flattened with the pedicels,

bracts and the ovary concealed in the leaf sheaths. The lower big flowers on the scape are

mostly bisexual and the upper small ones staminate. Flowers are epigynous bright yellow,

bisexual or unisxual with lanceolate, membranous bract.. Perianth gamophyllous, rotate & six

lobed, locate at the top of a slender sterile long extension of the ovary by means of which the

perianth is exposed above the ground. Perianth lobes similar, elliptic oblong 1.2-1.6 cm long,

0.2-0.3 cm broad, outer lobes hairy on the back, inner ones sparsely hairy along nerves.

Stamens 6 in number, filamentous filiform, short 2mm long, adnate to the base of the perianth

lobes, Anthers linear or linear lanceolate, basifixed and sagittate,.Ovary inferior, hidden

among the leaves usually below the ground, tricarpellary syncarpous, lanceolate and

trilocular with a fairly long slender beak or extension -the stipe. Ovules many in each cell

attached by a distinct long funicle. Style short columnar, 2mm with a 3 lobed stigma. Lobes

elongate, erect and appressed. Fruit is a capsule about 1.5-2cm long, 8mm broad, oblong,

glabrescent with a slender beak and spongy septa. Seeds 1-many, oblong, black, shiny with

crustaceous testa grooved deeply in wavy lines.