Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/100

20 Habitat:—Subalpine and Alpine zone of the Western Himalaya from Chitral and Hazara to Kashmir, between 7,000 and 12,000 ft.

Roots:—Biennial, paired, tuberous; daughter-tuber conic to conic-cylindric from a broad base, 2·5-3·7 (rarely 5) cm., 12-18 mm. thick, bearing more or less numerous root-fibres, leaving behind the indurated bases when breaking off, bark brown to blackish brown, smooth or wrinkled when dry, fracture cartilaginous, hard, white within the cambium ring, brownish without; taste slightly bitter, followed by a very persistent strong tingling sensation, cambium continuous, forming a wide central strand, sinuous in cross-section; mother-tuber shrunk, deeply grooved and wrinkled, black outside, brown right through. Innovation-bud conic, short from a very broad base. Stem erect, simple, inclusive of the inflorescence, 60-120 cm. high, rather stout, crispo-pubescent above, glabrous below, or almost glabrous all along. Leaves numerous, usually more distant in the lower part and crowded in the upper, or more equally distributed, the lowest on petioles up to 7·5 cm. long, the upper shortly petioled or subsessile, passing into the floral leaves, quite glabrous, somewhat fleshy, lower and intermediate blades orbicular, reniform in outline, 4-6 cm. high, 5-9 cm. across, 3-palmati-partite almost to the very base, intermediate segment obovate-cuneate, long attenuated at the base, 3-lobed to the middle or beyond, lobes liciniate, or the middle lobe pinnati-partite, ultimate liciniæ linear, acute to very acute, lateral segments deeply 2-partite and liciniate with the inner division, similar to the intermediate segment and the outer 2-lobed and smaller, uppermost lobes similar to the preceding, but smaller, relatively longer and more sparingly divided. Inflorescence a long, narrow, stiff, dense or loose raceme, often over 30 cm. long, often leafy below, and sometimes with slender, erect additional branches from the base, crispo-pubescent; rhach is stout; floral leaves like the preceding leaves, but still less divided or entire, passing into the linear to filiform bracts; bracteoles, if any, small; pedicels slender, the lowest at length 2·5-3·5 cm. long and adpressed to the rhachis when mature. Sepals blue or whitish and variegated with blue, crispo-pubescent