Allium sativum

MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
Garlic is a perennial plant which rises to a height of 1-2 ft (0.3-0.6 m) tall at maturity. The foliage comprises a central stem 25 – 100 cm tall, with flat or keeled leaves 30 – 60 cm long and 2 – 3 cm broad.
The leaves are long, narrow and flat like grass, with a crease down the middle and are held erect in two opposite ranks.
The flowers are placed at the end of a stalk rising direct from the bulb and are whitish, grouped together in a globular head and are surrounded by a papery basal spathe; each flower is white, pink or purple, with six tepals 3 – 5 millimetres long. The flowers are commonly abortive and rarely produce any seeds.
A Garlic head is generally four to eight centimetres in diameter, white to pinkish or purple, and is composed of numerous (8 – 25) discrete bulbs. The bulb is of a compound nature, consisting of numerous bulblets, known technically as ‘cloves,’ grouped together between the membranous scales and enclosed within a whitish skin, which holds them as in a sac.
The Bulb of Garlic is used for Pneumonia, colic, indigestion, ulcers, skin diseases, hypercholestremia, cardiac diseases, vitilligo, hemorrhoids, sciatica, arthritis, brogaites, ear infection, reduced cholesterol
Garlic has been found to reduce platelet aggregation and hyperlipidemia