Nelumbium speciosum Willd. (PADMINI)

Thakur Balvant Singh is opinion that Padmini is the name given to the entire plant of padma.  Padmini mentioned in brhat trayi is nothing but red lotus (kamala).  It is extensively described and used in the Brihat Trayi, texts. Almost all the Nighantu granthas have delineated ‘Kamalam’. The white variety of lotus is considered to be “Pundarika”. Similary the red variety is known as “Kokanada” and blue variety as “Indivara” (B.P.) Therefore three varieties of Kamala are described in the texts.

Botanical Description – It is a perennial aquatic herb bearing the famous red lotus flowers. It is found in the fresh water ponds and lakes in India.

Major Chemical Constitutents–

Flower- robinin (a glucoside),

Leaves- nuciferine (alkaloid); asmilobine & lirinidine

Root- isoliensinine; neferine, armepavine (seeds).

Part Used- whole plant (mainly flowers, seeds and tuber), stamens (Padma Kesra)

Dosage– Fresh juice of tuber- 10-20 ml; seed powder 3-6 g.

Research–

(1) The 50% ethanolic extract of rhizome showed CNS-depressant effect and potentiated barbiturate-induced hypnosis in mice. It also showed diuretic activity in rats (Dhawan et al., 1977).

(2) Neuciferine behaved as a dopamine- receptor antagonist like other neuroleptics which exhibit a chlorpromazine-like profile of activity while, its degraded product atherospermimine acted as a dopamine-receptor agonist (Bhattacharya et al., 1978).

(3) Acetone extract of seeds showed antimutagenic activity against some common mutagens in Ames test. It decseased the mutagenic activity of ighantu B1 by 82.5% (Chem. Abstr. 1990,112, 539264).

(4) Haemostatic activity shown by plant extract is attributed to quercetin (Chem. Pharm. Bull. 1988, 36, 4585).