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Xanthium strumarium L., Asteraceae (Compositae), is a shrubby weed occurring almost throughout India, up to 6,000 ft., in western Himalaya. Leaves, flowers and fruits are illustrated.
The plant is a diaphoretic, diuretic, emollient, sedative, sudorific, sialagogue, and a decoction is used in chronic malaria, leucorrhoea, and urinary diseases.
The root is bitter, tonic and is used in swellings, ulcers and cancer.
The leaves are astringent, diuretic, and anti-syphilitic, used in scrofula and herpes.
The fruits are rich in vitamin C and are cooling, demulcent, given in smallpox. The seeds are anti-inflammatory and used in bladder problems, in herpes and erysipelas.
The fruits contain b -D-glucoside. The seeds contain the glucoside xanthostrumarin and oxalic acid, which is also present in the leaves.
The seeds contain a semi-drying oil called Gokhru or Adhasisi oil, resembling sunflower oil. The oil is edible and can be used in industry for the production of lecithin, soft and hard soaps and sulphonated oils and in paints..
The seed cake is rich in nitrogenous and phosphorus compounds and is suitable as a fertiliser.
This species is cultivated as a leafy vegetable (young shoots and leaves edible) in China. The herb is rather toxic but the toxic principles are thermolabile.