English : Common Bamboo manna/ Spiny bamboo manna

Urdu : Tabasheer/Bans/Bansalochan

Telugu : Veduru/Bongu-veduru

Description :

It is a tall, throny bamboo with a thick central root – stock , bearing brihgt green shining culms, 24-30 m high upto 15-17.5 cm in diameter. It grows rapidly about 4.5 cm per day. It is having crooked and knotty culms. It yields paper pulp of  good quality. Tabasheeer or manna is a silicous crystalline secretion found in the hollows of the culms of plants. Two varieties of manna are available in the market , the blue and the white , both having a sweet taste. However, the best variety is white , transpatent and light in weight.

Action and Uses:

Tabashir or bamboo manna is exhilarent, astrigent , cooling and desiccant and also a tonic for heart and liver. It is anti-billious , demulcent and pectoral.

It is used over-heat problems e.g burning hands, feet and eyes , hot and headache , palpitation , mouth ulcers etc. Bilious vomiting , diarrhoea and giddiness; fevers, spermatorrhoea and bleeding piles. It is applied to the mouth ulcers and spongy gums.

It is especially cooling and anti-tabkheer agent and included in the formulations to be used for the treatement of tabkheer or burning feet syndrome.

Ibn Sina’ s view:

Astrigent , mild resolvent and excessively cooling. Useful in stomatitis , heart weakness and beneficial in acute palpitation and coma from irritation of bile in stomach. Useful in thrist , vomiting and gastritis. Checks billary humour and acute fevers.