Bitterroot Restoration

Order: Gentianales
Family: Apocynaceae
Common name: Anantamul(Beng.); Indian sarsaparilla(Eng.).
Life cycle: perennial
Native Range: Native to South Asia

Hemidesmus indicus is a slender, laticiferous, twining, sometimes prostrate or semi-erect shrub. Their roots are woody and aromatic. The stem is numerous, slender, terete, thickened at the nodes. Their leaves are opposite, short-petioled, very variable, elliptic-oblong to linear-lanceolate. Their flowers are greenish outside, purplish inside, crowded in sub-sessile axillary cymes.

Hemidesmus indicus is used to make beverages and also used in traditional medicine. In Ayurveda it goes by the name of ananthamoola or Anantmula. This plant enjoys a status as tonic, alterative, demulcent, diaphoretic, diuretic and blood purifier. It is employed in nutritional disorders, syphilis, chronic rheumatism, gravel and other urinary diseases and skin affections.