Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/474

Vern. : — Amsânia, Butshur, Chena (Pb.) Khanda, Khama (Kunawar) ; Phok (Sutlej).

Habitat: — Temperate and Alpine Himalaya and Western Tibet in the drier regions, altogether 7-12,000 ft., 12-16,000 ft. in Sikkim.

A low-growing, rigid, tufted shrub, with usually a gnarled stem and erect green branches which are striate and nearly smooth. Bracts connate to the middle, not margined, eciliate, rarely produced into minute linear leaves. Spikelets ¼ to ⅓ inch, subsessile, often whorled ; fruiting with often fleshy, red, succulent bracts, 1 to 2 seeded. Seeds bi-convex or plano-convex. (Hooker.)

Uses : — The authors of Pharmacographia Indica write :— -" A specimen of the Persian plant kindly furnished to one of us by Air. K. R. Cama of Bombay, was identified at Kew as E. vulgaris. Dried branches of the Huma are still brought from Persia to India for use in Parsi ceremonial, and it is considered to have medicinal properties. The plant was used by the ancient Arians, and is probably the same as the Soma of the Vedas. * * * * T. V. Biektine (Bolnitch. Gaz. Botkina, 1891, No. 19, pp. 473—476) has brought to notice the use of a decoction of the stems and roots of E. vulgaris as a popular remedy for rheumatism and syphilis in Russia, and of the juice of the berries in affections of the respiratory passages. After administering the decoction himself in a number of cases of rheumatism, acute and chronic, he comes to the conclusion that the plant is especially valuable in acute muscular and articular forms of the disease : the pain is relieved, the pulse becomes less rapid and softer, and the respiration easier. Within 5 or 6 days the temperature becomes normal, the swelling of the joints disappears, and after about 12 days' treatment the patient is cured. In several cases marked diuresis was observed before or about the time that the temperature began to decrease ; the drug was also observed to improve the digestion and promote the action of the bowels. In chronic cases the action of Ephedra was less marked, and