DAPHNE MEZEREUM, 
a fibrous texture, pale-colored, with a smooth olive-colored 
bark. The leaves, which are protruded from the extremities 
of the branches, are tender, pale green, deciduous, lanceolate, 
sessile, entire and smooth. The flowers are of a pale rose- 
color, odorous, surrounding the twigs in clusters, below where 
the leaves are sent off, they are sessile, two, three, and four 
clustered, with deciduous bracts at the base of each cluster, 
monopetalous, tubular, and the lip divided into four ovate 
spreading segments. The stamens are alternately shorter, 
the four higher ones displaying their colored anthers at the 
mouth of the tube. The germen is oval, supporting a flattish 
stigma on a very short style. The fruit is a red pulpy drupe, 
containing one round seed. 
There are several varieties of this genus with different 
colored flowers and fruit, pink-colored in one variety, red in 
another, white in a third, clothing nearly the whole plant. 
CHEMICAL AND MEDICAL PROPERTIES AND USES. 
The inner bark of every part of this plant when fresh, is 
very acrid, capable of producing inflammation, vesication, and 
a discharge of seram when applied to the skin, and when 
chewed excites a considerable heat of the mouth and fauces, 
which continues for many hours afterwards. The fruit. is 
equally acrid, acting as a corrosive poison, not only to man, 
but to many quadrupeds, if eaten in large quantities. 
For medical purposes, the bark of the root is directed to be 
used. The roots are dug up in the autumn, after the leaves 
are fallen. The cuticle of the dried root is corrugated and of 
a brown color, the inner bark has a white, cotton-like appear-_ 
ance. As they are imported from Germany and found in the 
stores, they are derived from the stem and branches, and are 
long strips folded in bundles of a grayish or reddish-brown 
color externally, under which, on the removal of the epider- 
mis, it is greenish, and internally white and fibrous. The 
taste is at first somewhat sweetish, but soon becomes very 
acrid and unpleasant; in a fresh state the smell is nauseous. 
but when dried it is inodorous, although it retains its acre 
mony. The topical action of Mezereon bark is that of an 
irritant, and when the bark has been applied to the skin, vesi- 
cant, It has been recommended as a popular application for 
the tooth-ache. ale mi Ves 
_From the result of the chemical analysis of the Dapune 
Mezereum, by several eminent chemists, it appears to contain 
af, Sie test» and &, poouliae coystelling, peneigledidettied 
