Flora Medica

HYPERICACE^;.purplish black, fleshy. The leaves once much esteemed as vulnerary,and stillemployed with great confidence in the cases of recent woundsby rustic nurses.VISMIA.Berry membranous. Styles 5; stigmas peltate. Stamensnumerous in 5 parcels, alternating with 5 glands. Sepals 5.Petals 5, usually shaggy internally. Shrubs or trees, withquadrangular branches. Leaves usually protected by rustydown, rarely with pellucid dots. Flowers in branched panicles.Leaf-buds round or oblong.234. V. guianensis Pers. synops.ii. 86. D C. prodr.i. 542.Hypericum guianense Aubl. ii. 784. t. 311. Guiana.A small tree, with a stem about 8 feet high. Stem quadrangular.Leaves ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, dilated at the base, rufous beneath,smooth above, filled with transparent dots. Petiole short. Calyxovate, blunt, villous. Flowers corymbose, yellow. Berry yellowish,ovate, soft, somewhat 5-cornered. Bark when wounded yields a gumresin, which when dry resembles Gamboge. The leaves and fruit equallyyield such a secretion. It is purgative in doses of 7-8 grains.A decoctionof the leaves taken internally is valued as a cure for intermittentfevers. Aitblet.Several other species of Vismia yield a similar secretion, which hasfound its wav to Europe under the name of American Gamboge.118