Today let me tell you about an amusing plant. Its name is dhol samudra. Because it grows such enormous leaves, people compare them to an elephant’s ears and call it by another name too, hastikarna, which means exactly that, elephant’s ear. Its scientific name is Leea macrophylla, and it belongs to the family Vitaceae.
It likes a spot that is a little damp but never waterlogged, or the shade beneath some other tree. In the monsoon it turns up out of nowhere, without a sound, and within a few days it has grown big enough to catch everyone’s eye. The whole stem is green, and although it looks soft it is not really all that soft. The leaves are green too, hairy on the underside, with a toothed edge running from the middle of the leaf to its tip.
A flower head like broccoli
Even as you watch it grow, clusters of flowers open at the tip of the stem. Seen from a distance at this stage, the whole thing looks like a head of broccoli. The flowers are so small that unless you look closely you cannot tell that they are a bluish white. From the flowers come small, grainy fruits like pellets or marbles, which turn black as they ripen and then drop off on their own.
Here with the rains, gone before winter
I called it an amusing plant at the start because this whole cycle begins in the monsoon and is over before winter has properly arrived. In winter the leaves, and even the stem, rot away so completely that nothing is left but the tuber under the soil. For the rest of the year there is no trace of where the plant was or where it is, at least not until the next monsoon comes round. It is easy to mistake it for an annual because of this, but it is in fact a perennial. The tuber survives underground and sprouts afresh every monsoon. And even when it is out of human sight, it is said to keep earthworms away from the soil around it.
The plant can grow to about 2 metres at most. Hastikarna spreads by its tubers or roots and by seed. Its leaves contain flavonoids and other phenolic compounds.
A few traditional uses
Hastikarna has some uses in folk medicine as well. In the villages the root is traditionally used for ringworm, and the plant for joint pain and rheumatism. The juice of the leaves is applied to cuts, where it is said to slow the bleeding and act as an antiseptic. Now and then it is also used to dye cloth red.
Whatever else, it was a real pleasure to meet a plant like this. In a few days it will vanish again into some depth of the soil. But I hope we will meet again, some monsoon to come.
The traditional uses described here are for information only. Consult a doctor before using any plant to treat an illness.
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