# Malabar nut (Justicia adhatoda)

*Arusa, adulsa, bakas, bansa; Sanskrit *sinha-mukhi*, ‘lion-mouthed’, and *atarusha*; *Justicia adhatoda* L.; *Adhatoda vasica* Nees; in pharmacy *Adhatodae vasicae folium*, Malabar nut leaf*

**Known today as.** *Justicia adhatoda*, a shrub of the family Acanthaceae common throughout India, from the Punjab and Assam to Ceylon. Grieve describes the fresh leaves as four to six inches long and two wide, lance-shaped and entire, which dried turn a dull brownish green, “taste bitter and smell like strong tea.” She names the bitter alkaloid vasicine among their constituents. Its soft wood, she adds, makes excellent charcoal for gunpowder.

Kind: Plant

> **Caution.** Because of those possible effects on the womb and on implantation, the European agency considered further information on reproductive safety necessary. Grieve warns that large doses irritate the gut and cause diarrhoea and vomiting.

## What was it used for?

A remedy for the chest. Dymock, Warden, and Hooper record that the shrub had a considerable reputation all over India as an expectorant and antispasmodic, prescribed in consumption and other chest complaints with cough and hectic fever; Sanskrit writers directed the fresh juice of the leaves with honey and long pepper for cough. Grieve records that in India the leaves were dried and smoked as cigarettes to relieve asthma.

## What does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee declined to adopt a monograph on the leaf (public statement of 2013). Evidence of traditional use came mainly from India, with incomplete information on preparations and dosing; no single-ingredient product was found in the European Union and no specific evidence of traditional use in Europe. It also found information suggesting possible abortive, anti-implantation, and uterotonic effects, and called for more information on reproductive toxicity.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **vasicine**: a bitter alkaloid, by Grieve’s account

**Mechanism.** Not established in the sources read for this entry.

**Standing.** There is no European monograph: the European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee declined to adopt one (public statement of 2013), calling for more information on reproductive toxicity.

## What lore surrounds it?

The fruit, Dymock, Warden, and Hooper add, was sometimes hung round the necks of children to keep them from catching cold; in Ceylon, after Ainslie, the tree grew to fourteen or fifteen feet and was called Wanapala.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Dymock, Warden, and Hooper, *Pharmacographia Indica* (1893).** Dutt, they write, records a saying that no one suffering from consumption need despair as long as this plant exists. The Nighantas describe it as removing phlegm, bile, and impurities of the blood; a Persian author on Indian drugs says that the wood was used to make toothpicks and gunpowder.

## Sources

- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Malabar Nut.” As published on botanical.com.
- Dymock, W., Warden, C. J. H., & Hooper, D. (1893). *Pharmacographia Indica*, vol. 3, “Adhatoda vasica.” Internet Archive, b20413415_003.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Public statement on ema_adhatodae-vasicae-folium*. EMA/HMPC/681468/2012, 9 July 2013.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Public statement on ema_adhatodae-vasicae-folium*. EMA/HMPC/681468/2012, 9 July 2013.
- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Malabar Nut.” As published on botanical.com.

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*Malabar nut.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/malabar-nut

Historical description, not medical advice.