Asarum Canadense. 8 
Tue root of wild-ginger is long, creeping, horizontal, jointed, 
fleshy, and of a light yellowish colour, sending off radicles of the 
same hue. It smells powerfully aromatic, and is exceedingly grate- 
ful. The stems are very short, bifoliate, and bear a single drooping 
flower, in the fork formed by the junction of the two petioles. These 
petioles are from six to ten inches long, round, woolly, greenish 
above, and flesh-coloured below. The leaves are broad, kidney- 
shaped, pubescent above and below, have strong prominent veins 
which give the under part a bullated appearance. They are of a 
rich, shining light-green above; and pale, almost bluish underneath. 
The calix is very woolly, and is divided into three broad, concave, 
acuminated segments, with the point reflexed. They are of a deep 
brown-purple colour at the inside, and of a dull purple, inclining to 
blue-green externally. I have however found many specimens in 
which both externally and internally the colour was fine purple. 
The stamens are clavate, of unequal length, inserted on the germ, 
and are generally about twelve innumber. ‘The anthers are adnate 
to the filaments close to the ends, a slender point of the filament pro- 
jecting in each stamen beyond the anther. There are three nectarine 
filaments or perhaps abortive stamens, inserted near the lacinial di- 
visions of the calix. The pistil consists of an inferior, irregularly hex- 
agonal germ, and a conical deeply grooved style, (or perhaps six 
styles closely connected together,) crowned by six revolute stig- 
mas. The flower is generally buried under the earth by its drooping 
uncurved hairy peduncle. The geographical range of the wild-ginger, 
