Senticosa

ROSA CANINA.

DOG ROSE, OR HEP TREE.

Class XII. ICOSANDRIA. Order V. POLYGYNIA.

Gen. Char. Calyx, pitcher-shaped, five-cleft, fleshy, contracted at the neck. Petals, five. Seeds, numerous, hispid, affixed to the inner side of the calyx.

Spe. Char. Fruit, ovate. Peduncles, glabrous. Stalk and Petioles, prickly.

This small tree usually rises from ten to twelve feet in height, dividing toward the top into many spreading branches, covered with a smooth bark, and beset with alternate hooked prickles; the leaves are pinnated, consisting of two or three pair of pinnæ, or leaflets, with an odd one at the end-they are all of an oblong or oval shape, serrated, veined, pointed, growing close to the common footstalk, which is prickly, and at its base furnished with a sheathy expansion, fringed at the edges; the bractea are oval shape, fringed, and placed in pairs at the peduncles, which are smooth; the flowers are large, terminal, two or three together, and of a reddish or fleshy color; the calyx is pitcher-shaped at its base, fleshy, separated above into five long expanding divisions, subdividing into smaller segments; the corolla consists of five inversely heart-shaped petals; the filaments are numerous, slender, short, inserted in the calyx, and furnished with triangular anthers; the germens are numerous, in the bottom of the calyx, supplied with an equal number of styles, which are villous, short, compressed in the neck of the calyx, inserted in the side of the germen, and terminated with obtuse stigmas; the

fruit is a fleshy, smooth, oval berry, flesh-colored, formed of the tubular part of the calyx, and contains many long round seeds. It is a native of England, and is usually found growing in woods and hedges, flowering in June and the early part of July.

The flowers of this shrub make a very conspicuous and beautiful appearance, when the are cultivated either as an ornament in the garden, or in the hedge, where they are so extensively grown. The fruit, called heps or hips, has a sourish taste, and in some parts of England is very much used in preparing a conserve; for this purpose the seeds and chaffy fibres are to be carefully removed, for, if these prickly fibres are not entirely scraped off from the internal surface of the fruit, the conserve is liable to produce great irritation on the primæ viæ.

Medical Properties and Uses. The officinal preparation of the fruit of this tree, is considered by modern practitioners to possess but little, if any, medicinal virtue, although it is extensively used in some parts of Europe, and highly esteemed as useful in many disorders, as dropsies, calculous complaints, dysenteries, hæmorrhages, etc., but at the present time it is not considered of sufficient importance, to place much reliance on its powers. It is agreeable to the taste, and well suited to give form to the more active articles of the Materia Medica.

Compositæ.

ANTHEMIS PYRETHRUM.

SPANISH CAMOMILE.

Class XIX. SYNGENESIA. Order II. POLYGAMIA SUperflua. Gen. Char. Receptacle, chaffy. Seed-down, none, or a membranous margin. Calyx, hemispherical, nearly equal. Florets, of the ray more than five

Spe. Char.

Stems, simple, one-flowered, decumbent. Leaves, many times pinnated.

The root is perennial, tapering, long, externally brown, and sends off several small, whitish, fibres; the stems are simple, round, trailing, bearing but one flower, and rise about a foot in height; the leaves are double, pinnate, with narrow, nearly linear segments, of a pale green color; the flowers are large, at the disc, of a yellow color, at the radius, white on the upper side, on the under side, of a purple color—the different florets answer to the description given of the Anthemis nobilis. It flowers in June and July.

This plant is a native of the Levant, and the southern parts of Europe; it was first cultivated in England by Lobel, in the year 1570, since which time it has been introduced into France, and some parts of the United States; but does not ripen its seeds here, unless the season proves very long and dry. The root is the part considered as officinal, and used under the name of Pellitory of Spain; it has a very hot pungent taste, without any sensible smell; its pungency resides in a resinous matter, of the more fixed kind, being extracted completely by rectified spirit, and only in small part by water, and not being carried off, in evaporation or distillation by either menstrum.

We are told that the ancient Romans employed this root as a pickle; and indeed it seems much less acrid than many other substances now employed for this purpose. The ancient Egyptians held this plant in such high repute, that they dedicated it to the curing of agues; their experience and success, in the administration of this medicine, gained for it a reputation that placed it very high in their estimation; they employed it with great success in the treatment of disease of the Pleura.

Medical Properties and Uses. Spanish camomile, or Pillitory, is a powerful irritant, almost exclusively used as a sialagogue in certain forms of rheumatism, neuralgic affections of the face, headache, toothache, etc., or as a local stimulant in palsy of the tongue or throat. In its recent state, this root is not so pungent as when dried, yet, if applied to the skin, it is found to act similar to the bark of mezereon, and in four days produces inflammation of the part.

From the aromatic and stimulating qualities of Pyrethrum, there can be no doubt but that it may be found an efficacious remedy, and equally fitted for an internal medicine, as many others of this class now so extensively prescribed. Its use, however, has long been confined to that of a masticatory, for, on being chewed, or long detained in the mouth, it excites a glowing heat, stimulates the excretories of saliva, and thereby produces a free discharge. It is also a valuable external application for sprains, bruises, swellings, rheumatism, contracted muscles, tumors, etc., and for this purpose it is generally employed in the form of a nerve ointment. For many purposes it may be chewed, or employed as a gargle in decoction or vinous tincture. The dose, as a masticatory, is from 30 grains to a drachm.

In a very ancient but valuable medical work, published in London, in the year 1610, by William Salmond, M. D., we find several pages of this extensive English Herbal devoted exclusively to the medicinal virtues of this plant.