Flora Medica

young shoots and petioles usually of a fine red. Leaves pinnate 'leaflets oblong or oval, entire, or somewhat slightly sinuated, acuminate'smooth, paler underneath, nearly sessile, except the terminal one.Flowers dioecious and polygamous, very small, green, in loose axillarypanicles. The panicles of barren flowers downy, largest and mostbranched. Sepals 5, ovate. Petals 5, oblong. Stamens longer than thepetals, and projecting through their interstices. The rudiment of a3-cleft stylein the centre. In the fertile flowers, the panicles of whichare much smaller, the sepals and petals resemble the last, while thecentre is occupied by an oval ovary, terminated by 3 circular stigmas.Fruit a bunch of dry berries or rather drupes of a greenish white, sometimesmarked with slight purple veins, and becoming wrinkled whenold; roundish, a little broadest at the upper end, and compressed,containing one white, hard, furrowed seed. The juice or even airimpregnated with the volatile principle of this plant is to many personsa serious poison producing severe and dangerous erysipelatous swellings.Kalm mentions a person who by the simple exhalation was swollen tosuch a degree that " he was as stiff as a log of wood and could only beturned about in sheets." Some constitutions are however but slightlyor not at all affected by it.589. R. Toxicodendron Linn, sp.pl. 381. DC. prodr.ii. 69.S. and C. iii. t. 167. Bot. Mag.t. 1806. R. radicans Linn.sp.pl. 381. Bigelow med. bot. iii. t. 42. DC. ii.prodr. 69.Common in woods in the United States. (Poison ivy.)A creeping shrub with long cord-like shoots, emitting strong lateralfibres. Leaves ternate, on long semicylindrical petioles. Leafletsovate or rhomboidal, acute, smooth and shining on both sides, theveins sometimes a little hairy beneath. The margin is sometimesentire and sometimes variously toothed and lobed, in the same plant.Flowers small, greenish white. They grow in panicles or compoundracemes on the sides of the new shoots, and are chiefly axillary. Thebarren flowers have a calyx of 5 erect, acute segments, and a corollaof 5 oblong recurved petals. Stamens erect with oblong anthers. Inthe centre is a rudiment of a style.The fertile flowers, situated on adifferent plant, are about half the size of the preceding. The calyxand corolla are similar, but more erect. They have 5 small, abortivestamens, and a roundish ovary surmounted with a short, erect style,ending in 3 stigmas. The berries are roundish and of a pale greencolour, approaching to white. Yields abundantly a yellowish narcoticacrid milky juice, which becomes black when exposed to the air, andforms an indelible ink when applied to linen. This juice, and eventhe exhalations from the plant are extremely poisonous, to manypersons, though not to all.They bring on itching, redness and tumefactionof the affected parts, particularly of the face, succeeded byblisters, suppuration, aggravated swelling, heat, pain and fever. Symptomsthough often highly distressing are rarely fatal. It isemployedin powder, infusion and extract internally in certain diseases. Dr.Horsfield administered it with success in the dose of a teacup of theinfusion to consumptive and anasarcous it ;patients has been employedwith supposed benefit in consumption, and is well spoken of incases of herpetic eruption, palsy, mania, and paralysis.De Candolle follows Nuttall in considering Rhus radicans and Toxicodendrondistinct species; but I am persuaded that the supposed285