ABUTILON AVICENNA

INDIAN MALLOWS

Description:  Natural Order, Malvaceae. Genus ABUTILON: Calyx five-cleft, without an involucel, often angular. Ovaries five, many-seeded. Styles many cleft. Capsule of five or more carpels, arranged circularly, each one-celled and from one to three-seeded. A. AVICENNA.  Leaves four to six inches broad, roundish-cordate, acuminate, dentate, velvety. Peduncles shorter than the  leaf- stalks. Carpels about fifteen, inflated, two-beaked, truncated, three-seeded, hairy. Stem branched, three to four feet high. Flowers yellow, nearly an inch broad. Annual, common in waste places, blooming in July .

Properties and Uses:  The leaves are mucilaginous and slightly astringent, which would fit them for use in dysenteries, and mild leucorrhea, and as an emollient and cleansing poultice. They are not employed by the profession; but their use among the people in some sections, shows that they should receive attention. The Abutilon Indicum, (or Sida Indica,) as also the Sida cordifolia and carpinifolia, are much esteemed as demulcents in the fluxes of Southern Asia and Brazil, to which the plant now so common in our country was probably indigenous. It will undoubtedly repay investigation.