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Grass-Leaved Saw-Wort
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Grass-Leaved Saw-Wort
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Grass-Leaved Saw-Wort
Botanical name: Saussurea graminifolia    Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)

Grass-Leaved Saw-Wort is a perennial herb with one or many stout, woolly stems, growing to 6-15 cm tall. The root stalk is covered with old leaf-bases. Leaves are grass-like, long and slender, lower ones glossy and hairless. Leaf bases are dialted and papery. Flower-heads are spherical, 2.5-3.5 cm, solitary at the end of each stem, with many purple florets embedded in dense white-woolly hairs surrounded by much longer spreading or upturned white-woolly leaves. Grass Leaved Saw-wort is seen in the Himalayas at altitudes of 4000-5600 m. Flowering: July-September.
Medicinal uses: The entire plant is used in Tibetan medicine, it is said to have a sour and sweet taste with a heating potency. Antitussive, aphrodisiac, blood purifier and emmenagogue, it is used in the treatment of coughing due to a loss of potency of the spleen, irregular menses, seminal/vaginal discharge, excessive bleeding from the womb and pain of the waist due to a loss of renal potency.

Identification credit: Prashant Awale, G.S.Goraya, D.S.Rawat Photographed in Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh.

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