i'oO ' SOLANACEiE. 



SOLANACE^. 



STIPES DULCAMARiE. 



Caules BulcamarcE ; Bitter-siueet, Dulcamara, Woody Mghf shade; 



F. Douce amere, Morelle grimpante ; G. Bittersilss. 



Botanical Origin—Solamtm Dulcamara L., a perennial shrubby 

 plant, having small purple flowers and red berries, occurring throughout 

 Europe, except in the extreme north. It is also found in Northern 



Minoi 



It is common in moist, shady licdges and thickets.' 



History — Bitter nightshade, "manyglog," was an ingredient, 

 together with wild sage and betony, of a drink which the Welsh 

 "Physicians of Myddfai" in the 13th century prepared for the bite of 

 a mad dog.^ The stalks of bitter-sweet were also used in the medical 

 practice by the German physicians and botanists of the 1 Gth century, 

 one of whom, Tragus (1552), has figured and described it, under the 



D alcamai 



light 

 or 5- 



Description— The older stems are woody; the upper and yomiger 

 are soft and green, long and straggling, attaining by the support of other 

 plants a height of 6 feet or more, and dying back in the winter. For 

 medicinal use, the shoots of a year or two old should be gathered, either 

 Me m the year, or early in the spring before the leaves come out. 

 these shoots are several feet long, by about I of an inch thick, of a i''-^+ 

 greenish-brown, sometimes cylindrical, at others indistinctly 4- - 

 sided slightly furrowed longitudinally, or somewhat warty. 



the thm, shining cork-bark easily exfoliates, showing beneath it the 

 mesophloeum which is rich in chlorophyll. The stalks are mostly 

 hollow, and partially filled with a whitish pith. The wood when dried 

 IS about half or one-third as broad as the hollow centre, and the green 

 bark considerably narrower than the wood: the latter has a radiate 

 structure, and in older stems exhibits two ' or three sharply-defined 



annual rings. The stems are usually cut into short lengths before being 

 dried for usp -^ ^ 



The odour, which is rather fretid and unpleasant, is to a great extent 

 clissipated by drying. The taste, at first slightly bitter, is afterwards 

 sweetish. Ihe bitter appears to be more predominant in the spring 

 than m the autumn. 



Microscopic Structure— The epidermis of younger shoois consists 

 ot tabular thick-walled cells, many of theui being elevated from the 

 ^urtace as short blimt hairs. Tl,e older stems are covered with the usual 

 tuberous envelope. The boundary between tlio mesophheum and the 

 idophloeum is marked by a ring of strong liber fibres, some of which 

 so occur in the pith. The woody part is rich in large vessels, m 



nU« r • ,, ""■■'■■'^"-'^ ^y a rjiig oi sirong iiDCr nores, «ujjic -- ■•- , 



ih^Z .^'^ ^^'' P^*^- Tbc woody part is rich in large vesse s. In 

 the parenchymatous tis.sue of bitter-sweet, small crystals of oxalate ot , 



sembSSatS^^-i ^^''^ '^^''^''^^ ^«- ' Meddyyon Myddvai (see Appendix) 185. 



or biennial SK ^"^"g'-o^^'ng '-annual 293. 375. 



— -I WW AViX /I 



nes usually black. 



