Medeola Virginica. 147 
brown colour. Stamens six, of the same colour. The berry is about 
the size of a common pea, of a blue colour, inclining to purple, and 
containing three cells, each having from five to six compressed 
three-sided seeds. 
This plant has a wide range in our states, being every where found 
in moist rich woods, according to Michaux, Pursh, &c. from Canada 
to Florida. Its favourite situations are low thickets, bordering on 
rivulets; and in such places it will be found abundantly in the neigh- 
bourhood of this city, flowering in the months of May and June. 
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. 
The claims of cucumber root, to be ranked as an article of the 
Materia Medica, are rather humble. It must be acknowledged 
that the sensible properties of the plant do not augur very favoura- 
bly of its activity or usefulness, and it is even said the Indians eat the 
root as we do the cucumber. Yet it has been deemed proper to 
figure and describe it in this work, in consideration of some little 
repute it has enjoyed, as a diuretic, and its alleged benefit as a 
hydrogogue. Little seems to have been known of its real virtues, 
by those who have noticed it asa medicine. Schoepf, it is true, has 
enumerated it among the articles of the vegetable Materia Medica 
