Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

3;S FAMILY HERBAL.
high : the leaves are large, long, not very broad,
rough to the touch, and of a deep disagreeable green :
the stalks are green, thick, angulated, and upright.
The {lowers grow along the tops of the
branches, and are white, sometimes reddish, not
very largo, and hang often downwards. The root
is thick, black, and irregular ; when broken it is
found to be white within, and full of a slimy juice.
This root is the part used, and it is best fresh,, but
it may he beat up into a conserve, with three time*
its weight of sugar. It is a remedy for thatterr
ble disease the whites. It is also good aguiiiispitting
of blood, bloody fluxes, and purging*., and
for inward bruises.
The Contrayerva Pl.h.'t. Contrayerva.
A VERY singular plant, native of America,
i
yet got into our gardens. It consists only
vis
rising from the root, upon single footand
flowers of a singular kind, standing also
an
le and separate foot- stalks, with no leaves
upon them. The leaves arc large, oblong, very
broad, and deeply divided on each side their ; colour
is a dusky green ; and the foot- stalks on
which they stand are small and whitish, and often
bond under the weight of the leaf. The stalks
Afiieh support the flowers, are shorter and weaker
than these ; and the flowers are of a very peculiar
kind ; they arc disposed together in a kind of
l.'ai form, and arc very small and inconsiderable,
i'hc bed on which they are situated is of an oval
figure, and is called the placenta of the plant ;
it is of a pale colour and thin.
V. e are told of another \i\nvA of the same kind ;
Iho leaves of which are less divided, and the platva'.a
is square, but the roots of both arc allowed