Flora Medica

EUPHORBIACEjE.The herb dried and salted was preserved by the ancient Greeks as apowerful purge.410. E. corollata Linn. sp. pi. 658. Bigel. med. bot. iii. t. 53.Dryfields in the United States.Root large, branching. Stems numerous, from 2 to 5 feet in height,erect, round, and in most instances simple. Leaves scattered, sessile,oblong, obovate or linear, a little revolute at the margin, smooth insome plants, very hairy in others. Umbel 5-rayed, supported by as manybracteal leaves. Not unfrequently a small axillary branch or two arisefrom the sides of the stem below the umbel. Eays of the umbelrepeatedly trifid or dichotomous, each fork being attended by 2 leafletsand a flower. Involucre large, rotate, white, with 5 obtuse petallikesegments alternate segments ; 5, very small, obtuse. A great portionof the plants are wholly staminiferous. A good emetic, in the opinionof Dr. Zollickoffer of Baltimore, not inferior to Ipecacuanha ; it isalso an expectorant and cathartic. The bruised root when recentexcites inflammation and vesication.411. E. linearis Retz. called Erva do Andourinha in Brazil.The milky juiceisemployed for syphilitic ulcers. Martiussays it is singular that there is a notion throughout Brazil, thatthis juice dropped into a fresh wound in the apple of the eye,immediately effects a cure. We were often assured, that thisexperiment had been tried with success upon fowls.PEDILANTHUS.Common involucre slipper-shaped. $ . Several in the circumference.Pedicels bracteolate, each articulated with a nakedanther. ? . One in the centre. Calyx 0. Style 1 . Stigmas3. Capsules 3-coccous. A. de J.412. P. tithymaloides Poit. ann. mus. xix. 388. t. 19. Kunthsynops. i. 391. Bot. Reg. t. 837 Euphorbia tithymaloides Linn,sp. pi.ii. 416. 649. Jacq. amer. 149. t. 92. E. myrtifolia Lam. enc.(Comm. hort. i. t.16.) Various parts of the WestIndies in stony bushy places, near the coast. (Jew bush.)A shrub throwing out runners, erect, about 6 feet high, aboundingin white bitter milk. Stems numerous, weak, soft, as thick as thefinger, when old cinereous, when young green. Leaves ovate, obtuseor acute, coriaceous, entire, alternate, stalked, distichous, when youngdowny on each side, and wavy at the edges ; becoming at last quitesmooth and flat. Peduncles 1-flowered, short, clustered about theextremities of the branches. Involucre slipper-shaped, bright red, witha green back. The practitioners of Cura9ao give a decoction of thewhole plant, especially of the stem, as the ordinary beverage, and inarbitrary doses, to patients with venereal complaints. The Americanwomen also employ it in suppression of the menses. The plant ismoreover known and used as Ipecacuanha.196