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Patience Dock
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Patience Dock
ative Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Patience Dock, English spinach, Garden patience, Herb patience, Monk's rhubarb • Ladakhi: ཤོམཱ་Shoma
Botanical name: Rumex patientia    Family: Polygonaceae (Knotweed family)
Synonyms: Rumex tibeticus, Rumex patientia subsp. tibeticus, Rumex orientalis

Patience Dock is a perennial herb with stout erect stem up to 1.2 m tall, branched at top. Lower leaves are oblong-lanceshaped pointed, with often wavy margins, carried on long stalks. Upper leaves are smaller, lanceshaped. Flowers are small, yellowish-green, in whorls arranged in numerous spike-like clusters forming a long compact leafy inflorescence. Fruit is enclosed in rounded net-veined valves 4-6 x 4-5 mm, with notched or cut-off base and more or less pointed tip. Patience Dock is found in the Himalayas, from Afghanistan to Himachal Pradesh, at altitudes of 2100-4100 m. It is common in Ladakh and Lahaul. It is also found in C. Asia and W. Asia. Flowering: June-July.
Medicinal uses: The juice, and an infusion of the root, is used as a poultice and salve in the treatment of various skin problems. An infusion of the root is used in the treatment of constipation. The leaves are rubbed in the mouth to treat sore throats.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Leh, Ladakh.
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