This section is from the book "The Sushruta Samhita", by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna. Also available from Amazon: The Sushruta Samhita.
The flowers of such trees as the Kovidara, Shana, and Shalmali are sweet in taste and digestion and prove curative in cases of haemoptysis The flowers of the Vrisha and Agastya have a bitter taste, are pungent in digestion and alleviate a wasting cough (Phthisis). The flowers of the Madhu-shigru and Karira are pungent in digestion. They destroy the Vayu and increase the discharge of stool and urine. The Agastya flower is neither too cooling nor inordinately heat-making in its potency and proves specially beneficial in cases of night-blindness (Nyctalopia). The flowers of the Rakta-Vriksha, Nimva, Mushkaka, Arka, Asana and Kutaja trees subdue the Pittam and Kapham, and prove curative in skin diseases (Kushtham).
The Padma has a bitter and sweet taste, is cooling in its potency, and subdues the deranged Pittam and Kapham. The Kumuda has a sweet taste, and is slimy, demulcent, pleasing and cooling in its potency. The two varieties of the same species known as the Kuvalayam and the Utpalam, slightly differ from the preceding varieties in their properties. The Sindhuvaram is renowned for its virtue of destroying the Pittam. The Mallika and Malati flowers have a bitter taste and subdue the Pittam owing to their sweet scent. The Vakulas, like the Patala flowers, are sweet smelling and pleasant, their pleasing and odoriferous property instantaneously permeates the whole system. The Nagam (flower), like the Kumkumum, is antitoxic and subdues the Pittam and Kapham. The Champakam is curative in cases of haemoptysis. It is both cooling and heat-making in its potency and subdues the deranged Kapham. The Kinshukam, like the Kurantakam, subdues the Kapham and Pittam.
A flower should be understood as possessed of the same properties which are natural to the tree or plant on which it grows. The (tefider stem) of the Madhu-Shigru is pungent in taste and subdues the deranged Kapham.
The Kshavaka, the Kulechara, and the tender sprouts of Vansha, etc., generate the deranged Kapham, and tend to increase the discharge of stool and urine.
The Kshavakam helps the germination of worms in the intestines. It is slimy and sweet in taste, and tends to increase the secretions of the internal organs. It generates the Vayu and does not inordinately increase the Pittam and Kapham in the body. The tender sprouts of Venn generate Kapham and are sweet in taste and digestion. They can be but imperfectly digested and produce the Vayu in the organism. They have a slightly astringent taste and tend to produce a state of extreme parchedness in the system.
Mushrooms are generally found to grow on stacks of straw (Palala), or are seen vegetating on the stems of bamboo (Venn) or sugar-cane (Ikshu), or as sprouting up from beneath the surface of the ground (Udbhida), or growing on a heap of decomposed cow-dung (Karisha.) Of these, those which grow on stacks of (decomposed) straw (Palalam) are sweet in taste and digestion and tend to produce a state of dryness in the organism. They subdue the three deranged humours of the body. Those which vegetate on the stems of sugar-canes (Ikshujam) have a sweet pungent taste. They leave an astringent after-taste in the mouth and are cooling in their potency. Mushrooms growing on decomposed cow-dung (Karisha) should be regarded as possessed of properties similar to those of the preceding class. They aggravate the Vayu, are heat-making in their potency, and have an astringent taste. Those which vegetate on the stems of bamboos (Venuja) have an astringent taste and tend to enrage or aggravate the bodily Vayu. Mushrooms which grow on the ground (Bhumija) are heavy of digestion and do not inordinately generate the Vayu, their tastes varying according to the soil they grow on.
 
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