Family: Lamiaceae

Synonyms: Salvia canna, Salvia mukerjeei, Salvia integrifolia

Common name:  glass-wort

Local Name: Chakor ka ghass (चकोर का घास)

Chakor ka ghass is a perennial herbaceous plant of Western Himalaya found growing between an altitude of 1500 -3000 m. It is commonly seen growing in open dry slopes at field margins, hilly slopes and pathways. Chakor ka ghass propagate easily through seeds and usually grows best in very well-drained light sandy and sunny habitat.

Chakor ka ghass growing wild.

Its young peeled stem is eaten raw. Stem along with young flower are used in chutney, rayata. These are also an excellent addition to various Indian dishes like poha, momo’s, sambhar, etc. Usually these are cooked in soups, masala oats and along with spices and basen into a traditional dish kachru eaten as snack.

Chakor ka ghass is harvested from wild for local personal use of food, fodder and medicine.

Chakor ka ghass Plant:

Plant is white woolly- tomentose, perennial herb, 30-45 cm tall.

Close -up of Chakor ka ghass flower

Leaves mostly radical, sessile, oblong or oblanceolate, 8-15 cm long, obtuse, toothed, white- tomentose beneath.

Flowers ca 2.5 cm long, blue in distant whorls, forming 15- 20 cm long spikes; bracts orbicular, pointed. Calyx campanulate, glandular hairy, ribbed, 2- lipped; teeth spinous. Corolla- tube not longer than the calyx, 2-lipped; upper lip long, curved, flattened, concave; lower 3- lobed.

Nutlets brown.

 Edible stem and flowers of this plant can be collected from spring to summer end. For ensuring sustainable harvesting collect plant from different habitat.

Edible Uses:

Chakor ka ghass stems are peeled and eaten raw or used in chutney, rayata preparation along with young flowers. Chutney is eaten with common traditional dishes of hills like momo’s, siddu, kachuri, parantha and kachru or sosru. Flower and stem are also used to prepare momo’s  and kachru, in following manner.

Collecting Chakor ka ghass for cooking

Veg Momo’s:

Maida (fine wheat flour), 2 cup amount, salt, ¼ tea spoon, peeled off stem and flowers of chakor ka ghass, 2 cup amount; vegetable (grated cabbage, carrot),2 cup amount; finely chopped green coriander leaves, ½ cup amount; grated ginger, 1 table spoon; finely chopped medium sized, 2; chopped green chillies, 2-3; olive oil, 2 table spoon.

Ingredients for making momo’s.

Method: 

Prepare maida dough by kneading well with ¼ tea spoon of salt and water. Keep it aside for 15 minutes till stuffing is ready. In hot olive oil mix well grated above mentioned vegetable and other ingredients to make paste for stuffing momo’s.

Small breadspread for stuffing momo’s.

Now split dough into small ball and make breadspread. Fill this breadspread with one table spoon stuffing, make momo’s pattern and place inside a steamer.

Stuffed momo’s of chakor ka ghass for steam cooking.

Repeat this process till whole dough and stuffing is over. Steam cook momo’s for 10 minutes. Now momo’s are ready to serve. Serve hot with chutney.

Chakor ka ghass momo’s ready to serve.

Kachru / Sosru:

Ingredients:

Fresh flowers and peeled off chopped stem of chakor ka ghass, 1kg; besan (black gram flour) or corn flour, 1/2 kg; fresh coriander leaves (chopped), 1 cup amount; caraway, 1/2 table spoon; green chilies, 2-3; turmeric powder, ½ table spoon; chopped medium sized onions, 2-3 and salt according to taste.

Method:

Video showing preparation of kachru

Make a paste of flower, stem, besan or corn flour and spices. Heat some oil on a flat heating pan. Put some paste over a pan and make it flat by pressing with fingers. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Kachru will be ready to serve. Repeat this process for rest of the paste.

Chutney:

Ingredients:

To prepare chutney, take 250 gm chakor ka ghass peeled off stem and young flower, 100 gm chopped mint leaves, 50 gm anardana or amchoor, 5-6 green chillies, 20 gm coriander leaves/ curry leaves, 2-3 onion, 1table spoon amount ginger.

Making of Chutney on a grinding stone.

Method:

Grind well all above ingredients either in a mixer grinder or on a grinding stone. Add salt to ground paste according to taste. Now chutney is ready to serve.

Chakor ka ghass chutney ready to serve.

 Rayata:

Ingredients:

Peeled stem and young flowers of chakor ka ghass, 250 g; curd, 1/2 kg; Chopped medium sized onion, 3-4, red or green chilies, 3-4, black pepper, ¼ tea spoon, black salt according to taste.

Method :

Take curd in a bowl. Add to all above in sequence. Mix well and serve.

Medicinal Uses:

The roots are used in the treatment of colds and coughs 1. The seed is emetic 1. It is used in the treatment of dysentery, hemorrhoids, colic and, externally, boils 1. A poultice of the leaves is used as a dressing for wounds and is also applied to itchy skin 1.

Other Uses:

Chakor ka ghass is grazed as a forage by grazing annimals.

References:

  1. Chopra, R. N., Nayar, S. L., & Chopra, I. C. (1956). Glossary of Indian medicinal plants (Vol. 1, pp. 138-139). New Delhi: Council of Scientific & Industrial Research.   

485 thoughts on “Salvia lanata Roxb.- Chakor ka ghass (चकोर का घास)

    1. Sir I need chakor flower pic which types this one
      And where will I take this one
      Can u help me

  1. I just do nothave noidea where to gonow. It’s like you wrote the book on it or something. I enjoyed reading what you had to say. This information is magnificent.

  2. Thumbs up! I have been looking everywhere for this! I really like your article. Ican tellthat you create contentbecause you reallylike doingit.

  3. Support the man born of prophecies Cuong Truong a.k.a. King of kings and Lord of lords 777 immortality smart contracts space coffins in space funeral homes.

  4. Thanks for writing this. It’s like you wrote the book on it or something. We have been following you guys for a while now and I’ve always liked the content. You appear to know a lot about this.

  5. Thumbs up! Nice read. I truly appreciate this post. I really don’t understand very much on the subject matter but I’ll keep coming back to this blog so I can discover all I can.

  6. Hi I am so glad I found your weblog, I really found you by mistake,
    while I was searching on Digg for something else,
    Anyhow I am here now and would just like to say kudos for a
    remarkable post and a all round interesting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have
    time to browse it all at the minute but I have saved it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will
    be back to read much more, Please do keep up the awesome b.

  7. I think other site proprietors should take this website as an model, very clean and wonderful user friendly style and design, let alone the content. You are an expert in this topic!

  8. Greetings from Ohio! I’m bored at the office therefore i made a decision to browse your site
    on my own iphone during lunch break. I really like
    the info you present here and can’t wait to take a look when I get home.

    I’m surprised at how quick your blog site loaded in my cellphone ..
    I’m not really using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, excellent site!

    Here is my web page :: MyMPickler

  9. Hello there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. You have done a wonderful job!

  10. Howdy! This is kind of off topic but I need some advice from an established blog. Is it very difficult to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty quick. I’m thinking about setting up my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any tips or suggestions? Thank you

  11. I’m not certain the area you’re getting the information, however good
    topic. I must spend some time learning much more or hitting the gym more.
    Many thanks for excellent info I used to be looking for this
    info for my mission.

    Have a look at my page; VonnieNUpham

  12. My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to
    .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses.

    But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on a variety of websites for about
    a year and am anxious about switching to another platform.
    I have heard excellent things about blogengine.net.
    Is there a way I can import all my wordpress content into it?

    Any help would be really appreciated!

  13. What i don’t understood is in truth how you’re not actually much more smartly-favored than you might be right
    now. You are very intelligent. You understand therefore
    considerably in relation to this topic, made me in my opinion imagine
    it from a lot of numerous angles. Its like women and men don’t seem to be
    involved unless it is one thing to do with Woman gaga! Your own stuffs outstanding.

    Always care for it up!

  14. May I simply just say what a relief to find somebody
    that actually understands what they are talking about on the internet.
    You actually realize how to bring an issue to light and make it important.
    More and more people need to look at this and understand this side of your
    story. I can’t believe you are not more popular because you definitely have the gift.

  15. Howdy! This post couldn’t be written a lot better! Looking through this post reminds me of
    my previous roommate! He constantly kept talking about this.

    I will forward this post to him. Fairly certain he’ll have a very good read.

    Thanks a lot for sharing!

    My web-site :: ShakiaQHarry

  16. I simply couldn’t go away your web site prior to suggesting that I actually loved the usual info an individual provide in your visitors? Is going to be again ceaselessly to check out new posts.

  17. Please let mе know іf yoᥙ’re lookinjg for a article author fоr your site.
    Yߋu have ssome really great posts and I tһink Ι would bbe a ցood asset.
    If yօu evеr want tо tаke some of the load off, I’d reallʏ like tߋ
    ᴡrite some content for уοur blog iin exchange fօr a link back to
    mine. Please shoot mе an email if inteгested.
    Ƭhank you!

    Feel free to visit my blog post: scegli questo gratis online

  18. Hi there! I could have sworn I’ve been to this web site before but after looking at a few of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Anyways, I’m definitely delighted I came across it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back regularly.

  19. I was just looking for this info for some time. After six hours of continuous Googleing, at last I got it in your website. I wonder what’s the lack of Google strategy that don’t rank this type of informative sites in top of the list. Normally the top websites are full of garbage.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *