March 23rd, 2007 | admin

Mashi thandu or mashithandu (Peperomia reflexa) is a small herb found in marshy areas.

As late as 1990s, school-going children used the stem and leaves of this small herb to clean the slates that they take to school and on which they drew pictures and wrote letters. This practice is now completely extent with the advent of books, pencil, pen, and of course computer and keyboard.

The fleshy stem appears to be transparent. There is lot of water content in the stem and in the leaves.

Extracts from mashithandu are used used as tonic and for different renal problems.

Perperomia reflexa belongs to the family piperaceae.