Flora Medica

CYNARACEJE.Leaves of a dark shining green, all their veins beautifully bordered withwhite; their edges spinous. Flower-heads purple, large, solitaryat theends of the branches, erect ;the stout spines of their calyx-scales veryconspicuous. Achaenia large, polished. Smith. The full-grown leavessaid to be sudorific and aperient.LAPPA.Head homogaraous, many-flowered and equal-flowered. Involucreglobose ;the scales coriaceous, imbricated, close pressedat the base, then subulate, with a horny hooked inflexed point.Receptacle rather fleshy, flat, with stiff subulate fringes. Corollas5-cleft, regular, with a 10-nerved tube. Stamens withpapillose filaments ; the anthers terminated by filiform appendages,and \vith subulate tails at the base. Stigmas few at theapex, diverging, curved outwards. Fruit oblong, laterally compressed,smooth, transversely wrinkled ;the areola at their basehardly oblique. Pappus short, inmany rows ;the hairs deciduous,filiform, rough, not collected into a ring. DC,957. L. minor DC. fl. fr. ed. 3. n. 3010. prodr. vi. 661.Arctium Lappa Eng. Bot. t. 1228. Smith Eng. FL iii. 380.Waste places throughout Europe and the West of Asia. (Burdock.)Root tapering, fleshy. Stem erect, 3 feet or more in height, solid,leafy, round, furrowed, with many wide-spreading branches. Leavesscattered, stalked, broad, heart-shaped, undulated, veiny , 3-ribbed atthe base ;somewhat hoary and downy beneath. Flower-heads axillary,either sessile or stalked, generally globose, with little or no woollinessabout the calyx. Florets, with their anthers and stigmas, purple. Theinvolucre when in fruit easily breaks from its stalk, and is well knownby the name of a Bur, sticking to the coats of animals, and the hair orclothing of young rustics, which can hardly be cleared of such incumbranceswithout breaking the scales asunder and scattering the fruit.Smith. Root is reckoned tonic, aperient, sudorific, and diuretic. It hasbeen used in the form of decoction in rheumatism and diseases of the skin.Sir Robert Walpole praised it as a gout medicine, and others haveconsidered it an excellent substitute for sarsaparilla. The fruit whichis bitter and slightly acrid, has been used as a diuretic.CNICUS,Involucre ovate ;scales close-pressed, coriaceous, extendedinto a long hard spiny pinnated appendage; the lateral spinesconical and distant. Florets of the ray sterile, slender, as longas those of the disk. Fruit longitudinally and regularly striated,smooth, with a broad lateral scar. Pappus triple as it were ; theouter being the horny short, crenated margin of the fruit ; theintermediate consisting of 10 long stiff setae ;the inner of 10short setae : all the setae alternating with each other. DC.958. C. benedictus Linn. sp. ed. 1. 826. DC. prodr. vi. 606.Centaurea benedicta Linn, sp.pl. 1296.Calcitrapa lanugi-468