N. ORD.—PAPAVERACEA 21 
GENUS.—CHELIDONIU M ,* LINN. 
SEX, SYST.—POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
CHELIDONIUM. 
CELANDINE. 
SYN.—CHELIDONIUM MAJUS, LINN. 
COM. NAMES.— COMMON CELANDINE, TETTERWORT; (FR.) HERBE A 
L’HIRONDELLE; (GER.) SCHOLLKRAUT. 
A TINCTURE OF THE FRESH PLANT CHELIDONIUM MAJUS, LINN. 
Description.—This upright, widely branching, perennial herb, grows to a 
height of from 1 to 2 feet from a fusiform root. Svem upright, cylindrical and 
branching, somewhat hairy and very brittle. Leaves alternate, petiolate, large, 
pale-green and glaucous, lyrate pinnatifid, with a crenately cut or lobed border, 
the terminal lobe obovate-cuneate. inflorescence, pedunculated, somewhat umbel- 
late, axillary clusters, with nodding buds and medium-sized flowers, the sepals, 
petals and stamens of which are early deciduous. Peduncles 2 to 4 inches long, 
bearing from 3 to 8 fedicels 1 inch in length, and involucrate at their base. Sepals 
2. Corolla cruciform; petals 4. Stamens 16 to 24. Style merely present; stigma 
2-lobed. Fruz¢ a linear, slender pod, about 1 inch in length, somewhat swelled at 
intervals, the two valves opening upward from the base to the apex ; seeds rounded, 
reniform, with a glandular ridge at the hilum, and a crustaceous, blackish-brown 
testa, marked with more or less regular, hexagonal reticulations. A description 
of the Papaveracez will be found under Argemone Mexicana, 20. 
History and Habitat.—Celandine grows all over Germany and France, in 
waste places, on old walls, along roadways, and about dwellings; it is pretty well 
naturalized in the United States, but so far it is not found at any great distance 
from dwellings, flowering from early in May until October. A fine gamboge-yel- 
low, acrid juice, pervades the plant, root, stem and leaves; this fact led those who 
practised upon the doctrine of signatures, to employ the drug in hepatic disorders, 
from its resemblance to bile in color. It proved one of the hits of that practice. 
The U. S. Ph. still mentions Chelidonium, but not officinally; it will probably be 
thrown aside at the next revision as worthless, fofidem verbis. In the Eclectic 
Materia Medica it is officinal as Decoctum Chelidonit. 
PART USED AND PREPARATION.—The fresh plant, gathered in Spring, is 
chopped and pounded to a pulp, enclosed in a piece of new linen and subjected 
* xehtd:sv, swallow, Its flowers appearing with the arrival of that bird; or, it was said that when the eyes of young 
swallows became, through injury or otherwise, affected with a white film, the parents gathered and applied the juice of 
this plant, rapidly curing the trouble. 
