Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/637

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FILICES.
1387


dish or obreniform, placed in the roundish sinuses of the crenations.

Uses:— In the Punjab, the leaves along with pepper, are administered as a febrifuge, and in South India, when prepared with honey, they are used in catarrhal affections (Watt).

At Colomas (in Mexico) this plant is used as a tea to relieve colic, but at Colothan it is taken as a tea for amenorrhea. This furnishes a good example of the diverse uses plants are often put to. (J. N. Rose's useful Plants of Mexico).

1352. A. venustum, Don

.

Ref :— Beddome's Handbook to the Ferns of Br. In., p. 86.

Vern. : — Par-i-siya washan, hansrâj, Hind., in the Bazars. The Makhzan gives Kali-jhant as the Hindi name of this plant. In Bombay it is chiefly known as mubaraka. The plant is generally known as ghâs in the Punjab Himalaya.

Habitat :— Himalayas up to 8,000 feet in altitude, and chiefly in the North- Western Himalayas extending to Afghanistan.

Fronds 3-4- pinnate ; pinnules firm, membranaceous, glabrous, and slightly glaucous beneath, shortly petiolulate obovate-cuneate, rarely subrhomboid-acuminate, striated, the superior margin rounded, scarcely ever or but slightly 2 or 3 lobed, finely dentate-serrate, fertile lobes with 2, rarely 3 notches, each notch bearing a rather large sorus at the bottom ; involucres reniform-cordate, submembranaceous ; stipes and slender rachis everywhere ebeneous-glossy, glabrous. (Beddome.)

Uses — It possesses astringent and aromatic properties, is emetic in large dostes, and is a tonic and a febrifuge and expectorant. This remark is given by Mr. Baden-Powell in his Punjab Products under A. caudatum, A. venustum and other species, and it is probable that if all the preceding are not actually used indiscriminately or as substitutes for each other in different districts, they might easily be so, since they seem all to possess the same properties. Stewart says that " in Chumba it is pounded and applied to bruises, &c, and the plant appears to supply in the Punjab most of the officinal hansraj, which is administered as an anodyne in bronchitis, and is considered