QUERCUS. Q55 



or common Pear, cult, better and healthier fruit, Perry 

 better than Cider, wood very useful, as hard as ebony. 

 P. cydoyiia^ Quince. Astringent fruit, sirup and pre- 

 serves used for diarrhea, cholera, cholic, nausea. Eaten 

 raw in Italy. Seeds fine mucilage, inviscant, demulcent, 

 coafjulate water. 



QUAMASIA ESCULENTA, Raf. 1817. Quamash, 

 Bear grass^ Wild HyacintL Wrongly united to ScUla 

 and Phalangium^ Kentucky to Oregon. Onion sweet, 

 esculent, makes a fine bread tasting like Pumpkin bread. 

 Used in poultice for inflamed breast. 



QUERCUS, L. Oak. Nearly 40 sp. All valuable and 

 tnedical. Useful wood, bark, sap, galls and fruits called* 

 acorns. Fine timber used for staves, casks, fences, shin- 

 gles, boards, houses, ships, &c. Acorns often esculent, 

 taste of chesnuts. Q. edidis^ Raf. and Q.prinos sv/eet 

 and good even raw, in Q. v irons good roasted and afford 

 sweet oil, the bitter kinds become worse by roasting, but 

 sweet by boiling, Indians make oil and bread of them. 

 - Sap of Q.prinos^ &r< acid sweet, make a beer like Beech 

 sap. Wood of Q virens and Q. laiirifolia [lAxe, Oak, 

 Laurel Oak) as heavy as Guayac, cannot split, nails 



"ff 



driven in cannot be taken off, hardens by age, strong, 

 compact, durable, our best timber; the next furnished 

 by Q. alboj obtusiloba, prinos^ montana^ &c. Bark used 

 for tanning, chiefly Q. ruhra^ falcata^ alba. Bark of Q> 

 tinctoria is the Quercitron bark dying yellow, also Q. 

 castanea and nigra. Q. alba and otiier sp. dye brown, 

 contain much tannin, and 18 per cent, of a peculiar 

 substance Quercine^ insoluble but inflammable, the sul- 

 phate of quercine soluble in acidule water. Febrifuge, 

 astringent, antiseptic, weak eq. of Cinchona for fevers, 

 very useful in cynanche, ulcers, dysentery, gangrene, 

 hemorrhage, sorethroat, wounds, prolapsus? tubes me- 

 senterica, hernia, &c. Used in wash, bath, poultice, de- 

 coction, &c. Cups and acorns equiv, used also in spas- 

 modic cough, asthma, chronic hysteria, amenorhea, 

 rheumatism. Dry emanations of oak bark useful in 

 phthisis. Some Indians use Q. hjrata in dropsy and as 

 an emetic. Oak galls still stronger, used to dye black. 



make ink, powerful astnngent and styptic 



