48 FLORA HOMCOPATHICA. 
cough. Flatulent colic of hysterical and dyspeptic individuals 
and of infants. As a stimulating expectorant and antispasmodic 
in chronic catarrh. In constipation, with flatulence; and as 
an emmenagogue in uterine obstructions (amenorrhea and 
chlorosis), Asafcetida has been employed, from a notion that it 
acted specifically on the womb. 
Description (From Dr. Falconer’s account in Transactions 
of Linn. Soc., 1849).—A tall perennial plant, five to eight feet 
high. Root fusiform, simple or divided, a foot or more in 
length, about three inches in diameter at top, with a dark 
greyish, corrugated surface. The summit connected, above the 
soil, with dark hair-like, fibrous tegmenta, the persistent exuvia 
of former years. Leaves collected into a fascicle above the roots, 
numerous, large, and spreading, about eighteen inches in length 
in the adult plant, of a light green colour, paler underneath, 
and of a dry leathery texture. Stem erect, striated, about two 
inches in diameter at the base, solid throughout. General as 
well as partial involucra wanting. Uwmbels, ten to twenty, 
rayed, emitted from the dilated spherical head of a common 
peduncle ; the rays two to four inches in length. Partial umbels, 
with very short rays, aggregated into a round capitula, varying 
from ten to twenty rays in the fertile, and from twenty-five to 
thirty in the barren umbellz. Flowers small, white, the barren 
generally mixed up with the fertile. Styles filiform, reflected 
in the ripe fruit, rather short and slender, attached by a broad 
base. Fruit, from seven to fifteen, ripening on the partial 
umbels, supported on short stalks, 
“The plant above described, I believe to be the true Asafer- 
tida disgunensis, or ‘ Hingesch’ of Kempfer. It does not 
appear to have been met with by any other botanist since it 
was examined in sity, by that excellent and careful observer 
upwards of a century and a half ago.” 
The following is Kempfer’s description of this plant :—<« [t 
has a long, generally undivided, root, black without, but inter- 
nally white, fleshy, full of Juice, and of an overpowering odour, 
