444 Polygala seneka. 
Turis humble plant is deservedly esteemed one of the first me- 
dicines in point of importance, native to our country. The genus 
to which it belongs is very extensive, containing more than one hun- 
dred species.* It is an ancient name, compounded of two Greek 
words, weavs, much, and yaa, milk, in allusion to the reputation of 
the effect of the plant on cattle that feed on it. But at this time it 
isnot known what is the precise plant supposed to be endued with 
such virtues. The root of Polygala seneka is irregularly shaped, 
contorted, gibbous, and ligneous; covered with a thick dull yellowish 
or greyish bark. Several stems arise from one root. They are leafy, 
slender, simple, erect, terete, of a dull brown purple colour below, 
and greenish towards the top; and are from ten to fourteen inches 
high. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate, acuminate, somewhat 
undulate, smooth, and supported on short petioles. Towards the base 
they are smaller, and inclined to ovate. The flowers are borne alter- 
nately on a slender terminal spike. They are papilionaceous, and 
though generally white, are often tinged with dull purple, and some- 
times faint yellow. The calix consists of three short teeth, two in- 
ferior, and one superior, in relation to the corolla. Michaux and 
Pursh describe two distinct varieties, one of which they call «. albida ; 
having lanceolate or oval leaves, with a somewhat crowded spike of 
* «s Europe affords six, South and Tropical America as far as Buenos Ayres twenty- 
four, Barbary and the Levant four, Siberia two, Guinea two, the Cape of Good Hope 
produces twenty-four, many of them ornamental shrubs, India and China thirteen, one 
in Japan, one in Arabia Felix, and several others of uncertain locality.” Mutt, 
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