Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/802

722 Habitat. — North- Western India ; Band a ; Western Peninsula ; common in fields.

Annual or biennial herbs, l-4ft. high, with radical leaves, tall, glabrous. Stem hollow below, often very stout and much branched. Radical leaves 6-12in., very irregularly pinnatifid, teeth cartilaginous ; these leaves are narrowed at the base. The upper leaves are runcinate pinnatifid, finely spinulose or ciliate-toothed, membranous. The cauline leaves few, narrower, ½-amplexicaul, auricled. Flowering stems slender, branches erect. Heads ½in. long, solitary or fascicled ; fascicles distant, spiked or subracemose ; rarely peduncled, bracteate. Inner involucre-bracts, with thickened ribs in fruit. Achenes 1/10in., oblanceolate, then suddenly contracted, shortly beaked, muricate, black, half the length of the flexuous silver persistent pappus.

Use. — It is used as a substitute for Taraxacum, and is called by the Portugese Taraxaco (Pharmacographia Indica, Vol. II., p. 319).

Vern. :— Undira-cha-kan (Mar.).

Habitat : — Banda and Sind.

A smaller and more delicate plant than the preceding, with smaller obovate and nearly entire rarely pinnatifid radical leaves. Flowering stems less branched. Heads usually solitary on the naked branches, distinctly peduncled. Achenes J1/6-in., nearly as long as the soft silvery persistent pappus.

Use : — The whole plant is used as a substitute for Taraxacum at Goa, and is called by the Portuguese, Taraxaco ( Dymock).

Syn. : — L. Sativa. Roxb. 593.

Eng. : — The garden lettuce, cultivated throughout India.

Vern. :— Kâhoo, Salád, Khas (H.); Sálád, Káhu (B.) ;

Habitat : — Western Himalaya, from Murree to Kunawar.,