88 Asarum Canadense. 
is from Canada to Carolina, and perhaps further south. It inhabits 
rich shady woods, and appears to delight in hilly places. The period 
of flowering is from April to May. This plant grows abundantly on 
the banks of the Schuylkill, above the falls on the west side, and on 
the Wissahickon creek. 
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. 
Wild-ginger is nearly allied in its medical properties, to the Aris- 
tolochia serpentaria.* The root possesses the same spicy and aro- 
matic odour, as the root of that plant; but the Asarum has it more 
powerfully, and it is not in this confined to the roots: the petioles, 
flowers and even leaves, being endued with the same grateful odour. 
The wild-ginger may deservedly be received into the Materia Medica, 
as a warm, grateful aromatic stimulant, acting on the skin, when 
taken in sufficiently large doses, with tolerable certainty, and as a 
powerful errhine, the latter property residing in the leaves. The 
emetic power} attributed to the expressed juice of the leaves is 
scarcely worth noticing, the dose that is necessary to produce the 
* Schoepf informs us that the Asarum Virginicum, (which is nearly allied to the A. 
Canadense) was formerly sold in England, for Aristolochia serpentaria; and that the 
inhabitants of Carolina called it Heart snake-root. 
+ Barton’s Collections. 
