Ain inwiai 243 
fields, sometimes in meadows ; and flowers in the months of June 
and July. The root alone is used for medical purposes. 
MEDICAL PROPERTIES. 
_ So many estimable qualities are usually attributed to this very 
favourite’ plant" and popular medicine, that it is not easy to assign 
it a proper place in the Materia Medica _ If the butterfly-weed is 
deserving of half its reputation, it is richly entitled to a distinguish- 
ed rank in this work; and so numerous and respectable are the 
authorities in support of its celebrity, that it is with —- 
able diffidence I venture to lessen, in the least degree, its ele- 
vated character as a medicine, by the intimation of any doubts 
of its just claim to its present undisputed reputation. My own 
experience with it is confined to a few trials in cases in which 
it is reputed to be peculiarly beneficial ; and ‘these have resulted 
in an opinion, that there is some foundation for the encomiastic 
accounts of this medicine. 2 tmay be safely, nay confidently recom- 
mended to physicians, as a mild cathartic, particularly suitable to 
the. complaints of | ie: as it leaves the bowels in a tranquil ; ss 
condition ; and as a certain diaphoretic, attended with no inconsider- 
