Family: Liliaceae

Bengali/Vernacular Name: Rasun.

English Name: Garlic.

Description of the Plant:

A bulbous annual herb; bulb consists of several smaller bulbs which are surrounded by a thin, white scale leaves. Leaves long, narrow, angular. Flowers small, white, in umbels at the end of a slender scape.

Using Information:

Bulbs are stimulant, febrifuge, hypoglycaemic, hypotensive, tonic, aphrodisiac, diuretic, carminative, antiseptic; used in fevers, coughs, bronchitis, rheumatism, inflammation, leucoderma, piles, indigestion, heart diseases and wounds; useful in gas formation, painful menstruation and pain in abdomen and ears. Juice is useful in asthma, whooping cough, headache, leprosy and as hair tonic. Bulb extract is taken orally for the remedy of dysentery and indigestion. Oil is stimulant and largely used as capsule in different ailments. The bulb with ginger along with the leaves of Datura metel and Calotopis gigantea used in rheumatism and wounds in Jointiapur of Sylhet.

Garlic has antibacterial, antifungal, pesticidal, anthelmintic and anticancer properties. Raw garlic decreases glucose, total cholesterol, phospholipids, triglycerides etc. and also lowers blood pressure. Regular use kills harmful intestinal bacteria. Fresh garlic inhibits mammary tumours in female C3H/He mice; allicin is the active principle (Asolkar et al., 1992). Diethyl ether extract and Allicin showed significant biological activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Walia et al., 2007).


Chemical Constituents:

Chief chemical constituent of Garlic is an essential oil which contains allyl propyl disulphide, diallyl disulphide, dimethyl disulphide and polysulphides. The sulphur compounds include allicin, alliin, allisatin I & II, sativis. It also contains anthocyanins, proteins, amino acids, glycosides of kaempferol and quercetin, saponin-like substances, sterols (ß-sitosterol, cholesterol and campesterol) vitamins and polysaccharides. Four steroidal saponins, protoisoeruboside, eruboside-B, isoeruboside-B, sativioside C and two amino acids, adensine and tryptophan have been isolated from the fresh bulbs. Vitamins A, B, C and a-tocopherol (vitamin E) have also been isolated from garlic.

Garlic also contains prostaglandins A2 and F1 (Ghani, 2003). A biologically active compound – scordinin A1 has been isolated, which on alkaline hydrolysis yield a peptide, scormin and allylthiofructosiduronic acid. The bulb yields a mixture of polysaccharides containing pectic acid, a D-galactan and a fructan component which contained fructose (Rastogi & Mehrotra, 1993).


Cultivated in most of the districts of Bangladesh.