Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/777

Rh Bom.); Mechitta (B.) ; Nâkasinkani, shikani (Mar.); Afkur (Sind). Bedi Achim (Santal).

Habitat : — Throughout the plains of India.

Annual, prostrate, glabrous or sparsely woolly herb. Stems excessively numerous, spreading from the root, 4-8in. long, slender, leafy. Leaves ovate-oblong, spathulate, 1/6-½in. long; teeth sharp, 2 on each side. Heads solitary, globose, axillary 1/10-1/6in. diam., subsessile. Corolla of female flower a very minute cylindric tube, hairs of achenes simple. Achenes minute, tipped with persistent style, bristly on the angles, says Trimen.

Uses : — The minute seeds are used as a sternutatory by the Hindus, also the powdered herb. It is administered in ozœna, head-aches, and colds in the head (Dymock ). Boiled to a paste and applied to the cheeks, it is employed in the cure of tooch-ache (Stewart).

Used for hemicrania (Surg.-Maj. Robb, in Watt's Dictionary II).

The natives of India consider it a hot and dry medicine, useful in paralysis, pains in joints, and special diseases ; also as a vermifuge ('Cyclop of India ').

Called " Sneezeweed" in southern New South Wales.

The following letter from the Rev, Dr. Wools (then of Richmond, N. S. W.), to the Editor of the Sidney Morning Herald, appeared in that journal on Christmas Day, 1886. It is given in full, as if the plant only partially realizes the expectations formed of it. It will be a valuable addition to our indigenons vegetable materia medica.

" Some weeks since the Rev. S. G Fielding, of Wellington, called my attention to a weed (known to botanists Myrioggne minutu of the Compositæ Order, which he said had been used with success in cases of blight. Being anxious to test the efficacy of the remedy, and to ascertain whether any bad effects would arise from its application, I placed some of it in the hands of Dr. Jockel of this town, who had furnished me with the following remarks : — ' I have much pleasure in testifying to the efficacy, in cases of opthalmia, of the plant which you so kindly sent me. A case came under my notice a few days ago of a drover who was suffering from a severe form of purulent opthalmia, contracted up the country. I made an infusion of the plant according to the directions, and the first local application seemed to have almost a magical effect. The man expressed himself as relieved at once of the intense smarting which he had previously suffered. He got on so well that in two days he was