Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/635

Adiantum : — Sori marginal, varying in shape from globose to linear usually numerous and distinct, sometimes confluent and continuous ; indusium of the same shape as the sorus, formed of the reflexed margin of the fronds bearing the capsules on its under side, veins free. (Beddome.)

Ref. : — Beddome's Handbook to the Ferns of Br. In., &c. p. 82.

Vern : — Káli-jháut (B. and H.) ; Mubárak ; rajhans or hansraj (Bomb.) ; Ghorakburi (Bomb.).

Habitat : — Throughout North India in moist places. South India very general on the western side in the plains and lower slopes of hills. (Bird wood's catalogue of Matheran and Mahableshwar flora.) (K. R. K.)

Stipes 4-6 inches long, tufted, wiry, naked, polished dark chestnut-brown ; fronds 6-12 inches long and 3 inches broad, simply pinnate, often elongated and rooting at the apex ; pinnæ subdimidiate, the lower edge nearly in a line or oblique with the petiole, the upper edge rounded and like the bluntly-rounded sides usually more or less lobed ; petioles of the lower ones spreading ¼-½ inch long, texture herbaceous ; the rachis and both surfaces naked ; sori in continuous lines along the edge.

Uses : — " In Gujrat it is extensively used in the treatment of chidren for febrile affections. The leaves are rubbed with water and given with sugar. It is worked up with ochre and applied locally for erysipelatous inflammations." (J. Robb. Ahmedabad). " Demulcent ; used externally as a cooling lotion in cases of erysipelas." (Surg. W. Barren, Bhuj, Watt's Die).

* Regarding Medicinal Ferns, the late Dr. M. C. Cooke wrote in the Pharmaceutical Journal for September 3rd, 1870 : —

" Ferns have been rather extensively employed in medicine, and some of them have acquired considerable reputation ; but it is doubtful whether, with two or three exceptions, they are of any real value. Some are probably inerts, others only possess properties which are more highly developed in other substances. On the whole, ferns are by no means important remedial agents, and their enumeration is more matter of curiosity than suggestive of value."