Botanical Name: Piper betle
Sanskrit Name: Paan, Tambul
English Name: Betel
Family: Piperaceae
Plant Part: The leaves.     

Description of Piper betle:

The Betel plant is indigenous throughout the Indian Malay region and also cultivated in Madagascar, Bourbon and the West Indies. It is a climbing shrub and is trained on poles or trellis in a hot but shady situation. It has a perennial creeper that bears leaves that are 4 to 7 inch long and 2 to 4 inch broad. It bears 5 to 7 veins. The leaves are pressed together and dried, sometimes being sewn up together in packets for commerce.

Constituents---The chief constituent of the leaves is a volatile oil varying in the leaves from different countries and known as Betel oil. It contains two phenols, betel-phenol (chavibetol) and chavicol. Cadinene has also been found. The best oil is a clear yellow colour obtained from the fresh leaves. The Indians use the leaves as a masticatory (the taste being warm, aromatic and bitter), together with scraped areca nut and lime.

Medicinal Action and Uses---The leaves are stimulant antiseptic and sialogogue; the oil is an active local stimulant used in the treatment of respiratory catarrhs as a local application or gargle, also as an inhalant in diphtheria. In India the leaves are used as a counter-irritant to suppress the secretion of milk in mammary abscesses. The juice of 4 leaves is equivalent in power to one drop of the oil.

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