Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/786

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Vern. : — Sâdi-modi (B.) ; Muel-schevi (Mai.) ; Sâdhi-mandi (Bomb.).

Habitat : — Common throughout India.

A slender somewhat glaucous herb, 10-18 in. high, glabrous puberulous or scabrid. Stems erect, or diffuse and often rooting at the nodes, more or less branched. Leaves 1½-4 in. long ; lower petioled, lyrate-pinnatifid or obovate, entire or sinuate ; upper smaller, amplexicaul, with acute or obtuse auricles. Heads ½ in. long, solitary or laxly corymbose ; peduncles very slender, nodding when young. Invol-bracts nearly equalling the flowers, linear-oblong, acute, narrowly margined. Corollas pinkish-violet or white. Style-arms ½-cylindric, the tip conic. Achenes ⅛ in. long, with 5 scabrid ribs. (Duthie).

Uses : — In Malabar, a decoction of the plant is said to be a febrifuge. Mixed with sugar given in bowel complaints (Rheede).

In Travancore, pure juice of the leaves is poured drop by drop into the eyes in night-blindness. The natives consider the juice as cooling as rose-water and prescribe it in eye inflammations (Drury).

Vern. : — Wânder-roti (Mar.) ; Gaidar (Bomb.)

Habitat : —Hilly districts of the Western Peninsula, from the Concan southwards.

A small shrub, 2-3ft. high, very fleshy. Branches very stout. Leaves 3-5 by l-3in., subsessile or petioled, obovate, or elliptic-lanceolate, quite entire. Flowering peduncles 6-12in. long, stout, erect, naked. Corymb of few or many heads, ¾-1in. long. Achenes ¼in. long, glabrous. Pappus hairs very slender, terete.

Uses:— The plant was brought forward in 1860, by Dr. A. Gibson, as a preventive of hydrophobia. The mode of administration is as follows : — About 4 ounces of the freshly-gathered stems, infused in a pint of cold water for a night, yield in the morning, when subjected to pressure, a quantity of viscid