Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/709

Rh when young ; 2-4-pinnate, secondary and tertiary pinnæ decurrent, entire or. very irregularly crenate-serrate. Lower leaves l-2ft., ovate ; cauline sheaths large from which spring simple or scarcely compound umbels. Terminal umbel large, compound, leafless. Vittae broad, usually occupying the whole of the furrow, and as long as the carpel, commisural usually 4, 2 slender, sometimes added. Fruit ⅓ by 1/5in. Ovary glabrous.

Use : — The gum-resin is a powerful antispasmodic, expectorant and anthelmintic, a nervine stimulant and a feeble laxative. It is useful in hysteria and hysterical affections, also in spasmodic affections, such as asthma, hooping cough, angina pectoris, flatulent colic, &c. It produces remarkable effects in the advanced stages of pneumonia and bronchitis in children. (Pharm. Ind.) The leaves possess sudorific and carminative properties.

The gum-resin is used as a condiment by natives. It is very efficacious in flatulent colic. In ringworm, it is applied as a paste.

Syn. : — F. fœtidissima, Regel, and Schmalh.

Habitat : — Kashmir.

Uses .-—Yields a gum-resin which, Aitchison says, is applied to wounds and bruises by the inhabitants of Kurram Valley (Watt).

" The careful revision by Mr. E. M. Holmes of the group of plants capable of yielding assafœtida has shown that, although we have as yet actual evidence of the production of assafœtida from Ferula fœtida, Kegel, and F. allicea, Boiss. only, yet there are several other species which probably furnish a portion of commercial gum-resin. In the course of his inquiries, he has been able to point out that the appearance of F. Narthex, as grown at Kew, is, when in fruit, different from the figure given in " Medicinal Plants ;" that Ferulu fœtidissima, Kegel., is not identical with F. Jœschkeana, as stated in the 'Flora of British India ; and, lastly, that F. rubricaulis can no longer be considered to be a source of galbanum, since it has