Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/493
Various substitutes are sold in India. The kind known as Royal Salep (bâdshah salab) has been identified as being derived from a species of Allium (A. Macleanii, Baker Bot Mag., t. 6707; Aitchison, Annals of Botany,, 1889-90, iii., 149-55) : while the tuberous roots of Asparagus adsendens (West Himalaya and Punjab) and of A. racemosus (Decean) are the white musali, Curculigo orchioides, the black musali and certain species of Habenaria are also so used. Besides these substitutes, an imitation salep, made of potatoes and gum (known as banawati salab), is largely manufactured for the Indian market.
A considerable Trans-frontier trade exists in salep from Afghanistan, Persia, Baluchistan and Bokhara into India. A little trade is also done in collecting and drying in India itself, mostly Kashmir and Lahoul, the tubers of Orchis latifolia, but the bulk of the ordinary article met with in the country is imported by sea into Bombay from Persia and the Levant.
1228. Vanda spathulata, Spreng., h.f.b.l. vi 50.
Vern. : — Ponnampon-maraiva (Malay).
Habitat : — Western Peninsula, from Malabar to Travancore, and Ceylon.
Stem about 1ft., leafy, thicker than a swan's quill, rooting upwards ; roots very stout, vermiform ; internodes lin., green ; leaves 2-4 by l¼-l½in., lorate, keeled, recurved, flat, tip rounded emarginate or 2-lobed, lower leaves sometimes smaller, ovate, sheath green, speckled with red ; peduncle from the middle or lower nodes, 12-18in., erect, robust, with a few distant, short, acute sheaths, green, speckled with red ; raceme terminal, 4-5-fid., rhachis stout, bracts broadly ovate, acuminate, pedicel with ovary 1-l½in., flower l¼-l½in. broad ; sepal and petal obovate-oblong, tips rounded ; lip longer than the sepal, side-lobes small, oblong, erect, mid-lobe much larger, shortly clawed, triangular-ovate, tip contracted, obtuse, spur very short, conical; column very short, rostellum obscure; anther depressed, truncate, pollinia oblong, strap short, spatulate, gland large, 2-fid ; fruit 1½in., obovoid, erect, ribs thick, pedicel lin., very stout. A striking species, the long erect peduncles, carrying the flowers high above the bushes over which the plant climbs. (Trimen.)
Uses : — It is supposed on the Malabar Coast to temper the bile and abate phrenzy and the golden yellow flowers, reduced to powder, are given in consumption, asthma, and mania. (Ainslie.)