Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

FAMLIY HERBAL. $39
Goat's Thorn, Tragacantha.
A little white looking prickly shrub, native
of the East, but kept in our It is gardens.
not
above two or three feet high, very spreading and
full of branches. The stem is of a tough and very
firm substance, covered with a whitish rough bark,
the branches are as tough, and the bark is pale
but smoother. The leaves are long and narrow ;
they are each composed of a great many pairs of
smaller set on a middle rib, which is continued
into a thorn, and when these leaves fall off, remains
a white thorn of that length. The flowers are
white and small ; they are of the shape of a pea
blossom, but flatter ; the pods which follow are
short and flat.
No part of the shrub itself is used, but we have
a gum produced by it, and called by its name in
the shops ; this is what they also call gum dragant,
it is white and tough and is in long twisted pieces ;
it sweats out of the bottom of the trunk in the heat
of summer. It is good in coughs arising f rom a
sharp humour : and in sharpness of urine, and
sharp stools, but it is a disagreeable medicine ; it
is very difficultly powdered, and the solution is not
pleasant.
Thorough wax. Perfoliate,
A very beautiful wild plant among our corn,
distinguished by the stalk growing through the
leaves. It is three feet high. The stalk is
round, firm, upright, whitish, and toward the top
divided into some branches. The leaves are broaa
them toward the
n ad eval ; the stern runs through