Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/789

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N. O. COMPOSITÆ.
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very short tails. Achenes 1/10in. slender, glabrous, shorter than the scanty white pappus ; tip dilated.

Use : — In Kanâwar, the seeds are given for colic. (Stewart)

676. S. densiflorus, Wall., h.f.b.l, iii. 355.

Vern. : — Chitawala (Pb.).

Habitat : — Central and Western Himalaya, from Nepal to Bhotan, and the Khasia Mountains.

Shrubby plants. Branches, leaves beneath and corymbs clothed with appressed white, rarely grey, cottony wool. Branches stout. Leaves 5-9 by 1-3½in., glabrous or cottony above, narrowly or broadly elliptic, or obovate lanceolate acuminate, toothed(teeth often hooked) ; petiole, large, ¼-1in., with often small, broad-toothed auricles. Heads campanulate, shortly pedunculated. ¼in., long, many-fid, bracteolate in axillary and terminal branched subpanicled corymbs. Involucre-bracts 8-12, linear, acute, white tomentose(opaque). Receptacle pitted and bristly; ligules 8-10, very short. Achenes 1/24in. glabrous; pappus equalling or shorter than the tubular corollas, white.

Use :— The leaves are applied to boils (Stewart).


677. Echinops echinatus, DC. h.f.b.l, iii. 358.

Sans. : — Utâti.

Vern. : — Utkatâra (Indian Bazars).

Habitat : — Upper Gangetic plains, N.-W. Himalaya, and the Punjab, from Benares westward, ascending to 5,000ft. to Sirmore. Behar, Sindh. The Dekkan.

A much-branched, spreading, rigid annual, l-2ft. high, branched from the base. Branches wide-spreading. Leaves 3-5 in. long, sessile, oblong, pinnatifid, spines often 1½in. Balls of head white 1-1½in. diam Outer invol. bracts 6-8 oblanceolate glabrous pungent one often spinescent ; Involucre ⅓in., long, inner hardening around the obconic silky villous achenes. Achenes 1/6in. long.

Use :— The drug is considered to be tonic and diuretic. It is bitter, and appears to us to have the same properties as the