pale, polymorphous, inner sometimes as if compressed, of 4 thick ribs, outer slightly curved and flattened, with a thick ventral and several thick dorsal ribs, all smooth and obscurely uneven. Pappus ⅓-½in., very diciduous, hairs very straight, soft and of nearly equal length.
Use:— In the Southern Punjab, the plant is used medicinally in sharbat (Stewart).
700, L. pinnatifida Cass, h.f.b.i., iii. 416.
Vern. : — Pâthri (Bomb.); Ban-kahu (Sind.) ; Almirao (Goa).
The juice known as khee khowa (Sind).
Habitat : — Sandy coasts of India, from Bengal to Ceylon, Madras and Malabar.
Perennial glabrous herb, juice yellow. Leaves runcinate pinnitifid or sinuate, toothed or lobed, l-3in., rarely more, teeth rarely white and cartilaginous. Flowering stems procumbent, long, flagelliform, rooting and leafing at the nodes, l-3ft. long, arching from node to node. Heads at the nodes solitary or clustered, ½in. long, usually with bracteate peduncles. Involucre-bracts almost 3-seriate, with white membranous margins, outer short, immediate longer, inner linear ; midrib at the base hardening in fruit. Achenes columnar, very thickly ribbed, much shorter than the soft white straight deciduous pappus, 1/12in. pale, set with a few very thick rounded ribs, usually obtusely 4-gonous, pappus ¼in.
Uses : — Used at Goa as a substitute for Taraxacum. In Bombay, it is given to buffaloes to promote the secretion of milk (Dymock).
The juice is used as a soporific for children, in doses of half a massa, and is externally applied in rheumatic affections, combined with the oil of Pongamia glabra or the juice of the leaves of Vitex leucoxylon. (Murray.)
N. 0. GOODENOVIAÆ.
701. Scœvola Kœnigic, Vahl h.f.b.i., iii. 421 Roxb. 177 (under S. Taccada).
Vern. : — Bhadrák (Bomb.).
