N. ORD.—COMPOSITA:. ~ 
Tribe.—CICHORIACEL. : is 
GENUS.—PRENANTH Es;,* VAILL. 
SEX. SYST.—SYNGENESIA JEQUALIS, 
NABALUS. 
RATTLESNAKE ROOT. 
SYN_—PRENANTHES SERPENTARIA, PURSH.; P. ALBA, VAR. SERP 
TARIA, TORR.: P. GLAUCA, RAF.; NABALUS ALBUS, VAR. octet 
RIUS, GRAY: NABALUS SERPENTARIUS, HOOK.; N. TRILOBATUS, 
CASS, AND D.C.: N. FRAZERI, D. C.; N. GLAUCUS, RAF.; HARPALYCE 
SERPENTARIA, DON.; ESOPON GLAUCUM, RAF. 
COM. NAMES.—RATTLESNAKE ROOT, WHITE LETTUCE, LION’S FOOT, 
GALL-OF-THE-EARTH, DEWITT SNAKEROOT, DROP FLOWER, CAN- 
CER WEED; (FR.) LAITUE BLANC, PIED D’LEON; (GER.) WEISSER 
LATTICH. 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE PLANT PRENANTHES SERPENTARIA, PURSH. 
This variable perennial herb, grows to a height of from 1 to 3 
thickened or more or less tuberous; s/em stout, 
sometimes purple-spotted or splashed. Leaves 
often decurrent upon the petiole, rather thin 
fied, or 3-parted, and the terminal lobe 
the cauline nearly all long, slender, 
Description. 
feet. Root very bitter, fusiform, 
upright, glabrous or a little hirsute, 
alternate, diversely variable, dilated 
and pale beneath; deeply sinuate-pinnati 
3-cleft; the margin a little rough-ciliate ; 
petioled; the upper more or less lanceolate ; the lower and radical truncate, cor- 
date, or hastate at the base. /nflorescence corymbosely thyrsoid-paniculate ; eads 
drooping, mostly glomerate at the summit of ascending or spreading floral-branch- 
lets or peduncles, 8 to 12 flowered; involucre cylindrical, green, rarely purplish- 
tinged; scales 5 to 14, ina single row, with a few small bractlets at their base; 
receptacle naked. lowers all perfect, pendulous, purplish, greenish-white or 
ochroleucous; corolla ligulate ; style long and slender; s/igmas much exserted. 
Afkenes \inear-oblong or terete, truncated, and finely serrate ; pappus sordid, straw- 
color, or whitish, composed of rough capillary bristles. 
ecies, assumes, in its mode 
History and Habitat.—This botanically difficult sp 
of growth and shape of leaf, all the forms from P.. alba to P. altissima, including 
two varieties (wana and barbata); hardly two plants in any one district being 
found with constant characters except, mayhap, those of the glomerules and 
pappus. Thus, now, P. serpentaria includes in itself what were once considered 
drooping ; 461, anthe, flower. 
some of the plates 
* Ipnviis, prenes, 
t be absolutely kept through seve 
+ Asa shade of color canno 
pappus correctly, 
ral thousand copies in lithography, 
may not represent the 
