Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/785

N. 0. COMPOSITE. 705 tomentose beneath. Scapes 1, or more, 4-10in., tomentose; bright yellow, drooping in bud, 1-1J in. Flowers, female, multiseriate, fertile ligule narrow, spreading. Disk-flowers hermaphrodite, sterile, tubular, limb-elongate 5-fid. Involucre campanulate or cylindric; bracts 1-seriate, equal, with a few very small outer ones. Receptacle flat, naked. Anther-bases entire, or subanricled, style-arms of hermaphrodite flowers entire, obtuse. Achenes of female flowers linear, 5-10-ribbed, with soft snow-white pappus.

Uses : — The leaves are sometimes applied to wounds (Stewart). In Europe, they are smoked like tobocco, as a domestic remedy for asthma.

Pliny records its being used for smoking, and recommends it as a remedy for obstinate colds and coughs, and recommends both the roots and leaves.

Dr. Cullen recommends the use of the leaves in scrofula. According to him, the expressed juice of the fresh leaves, taken to some ounces every day, occasioned the healing up of scrofulous sores ; a strong decoction of the dried leaves seems to have answered the same purpose.

670. Doronicum Hookeri, Clarke Mss., 332.

Vern. : — Darunaj-akrabi (Pb.).

Habitat : — Sikkim Himalaya ; Lachen and Tungu.

A robust herb, l-2ft. high. Radical leaves 0, or soon withering; cauline 4-6 by l-2in., often unequal-sided. Leaves all narrowed into short, J amplexicaul, petioles oblong or elliptic lanceolate, obtuse or acute, entire or irregularly toothed. Heads 2Jin. diam. Involucre-bracts ovate-lanceolate, acuminate. Ligules about half as long. Achenes rife ; not seen, says Hooker. Pappus short, reddish.

Use : — The root is an aromatic tonic, said to be used to prevent giddiness on ascending heights. (Baden-powell).