Flora of Bangladesh

Bon tamak or Wild tobacco (N icotiana plumbaginifolia , family: Solanaceae) is an erect herb with branches attaining a height of 60-70 cm. There are many branches below rather than the top.  The p l ant grows here and there, specially in sugarcane, corn and sesame fields and on the village street as weed in Bangladesh. Leaves look like tobacco (nicotiana tabacum) but smaller than that. Leaves are green in color, ovate-oblong or lanceolate-oblong, 25-30 cm long, hairy, viscose. Flowers are white with light pink shade, corolla tubular, sepals 5, petals 5. Flower grows as single from lea f axil. Flower blooms round the year.  The fruits are covered with 10 permanent veins. Seeds are small, black in color, upper part wrinkled.  The hairy perennial plant is a medicinal one. Leaf, stem and seed are used in allergy, phlegm, asthma, rheumatism, worm and louse infection and eye disease.

Dudhia or Shet kerui ( Dentella repens , family: Rubiaceae) is an annual herb with soft slender stem. It creeps along the ground and spreads around. Leaves are entire, thick and juicy, elliptic but pointed at both ends, 1 cm long.  Funnel-shaped flowers are solitary, small, nearly sessile, petals 5-lobed, 1 cm long, absolute white in color. Flowers bloom in the rainy season.  It is grown as weed on fallow land and at the edge of water bodies. The plant helps to prevent erosion of land. By the by, the plant's species name 'repens' means spreading or creeping.                                   Other Bangla names : Shadaphuli, Shada jabri, Bhuipat.