Flora Medica

AQUIFOLIACE^.MYG1NDA.Calyx 4-parted, small, persistent. Petals 4, rounded, plane,spreading. Stamens shorter than the corolla. Style short, with2-4 stigmas. Drupe globose, 1 -celled, with a 1 -seeded nut.803. M. Uragoga Swartz prodr. 39. Jacq. amer. 24. t. 16.JR. and S. iii. 501. Carthagena, St. Martha near the coast.An erect shrub, about 3 feet high on the coast, as much as 8 feethigh in inland woods. Leaves ovate or lanceolate, acute, finely serrated,opposite or alternate, with short red stalks. Peduncles filiform, axillary,opposite, bifid, with each division 3-flowered. Flowers small, deep red.Fruit soft, red, the size of a small pea. A decoction or infusion of theroot a most powerful diuretic.PRINOS.Flowers polygamous. Calyx half 6-cleft, permanent. Corollarotate, 6-parted. Filaments 6, subulate, erect. Style short,with an obtuse stigma. Berry with 6 stones.804. P. verticillatus Linn. sp. pi. 471. Bigel. rned, hot. iii. t. 56.DC. prodr.ii. 17. Edges of streams and ponds in the UnitedStates. (Black Alder.)A shrub, in growth irregular, but most commonly 6 or 8 feet inheight. Leaves alternate or scattered, on short petioles, oval, acute atbase, sharply serrate, acuminate, with some hairiness, particularly onthe veins underneath. Flowers small, white, in little imperfect axillaryumbels, which are nearly sessile. Calyx small, 6-cleft, persistent. Corollamonopetalous, spreading, without a tube, the border divided into6 obtuse segments. Stamens erect, with oblong anthers ; in the barrenflowers they are equal in length to the corolla ; in the fertile ones,shorter. Ovary, in the fertile flowers, large, green, roundish, with ashort style, and obtuse stigma. Fruit bright scarlet, roundish, supportedby the persistent calyx, and crowned with the stigma, 6-celled, containing6 long seeds, which are convex outwardly and sharp-edged within.These berries are bitter and unpleasant to the taste, with a little sweetnessand some acrimony. Bark considered a valuable tonic especiallyin cases of great debility accompanied by fever; as a corroborant inanasarcous and other dropsies ;and especially as a tonic in cases ofincipient sphacelus or gangrene. Berries also reputed tonic, but Bigelowasserts that they are emetic.*#* The Paraguay tea, Mate, Yapon, or Yerba de Polos, called IlexParaguariensis by Auguste de St. Hi/aire, Cassine Gongonha by VonMartins, and Myginda ? Gongonha by De Candolle, is said by VonMartius to deserve notice as a diuretic.394