60 MEDICAL BOTANY. 
ous taste. They owe their properties to a volatile oil, acrid resin and extractive. The bitter acrid principle found in 
the flowers by Chevallier and Lassaigne has been called cytisin. The resin by Pfaff has been called arnicin. These 
two may have been confounded. oe < 
Arnica is an acrid stimulant; it produces an acrid sensation in the throat, nausea, vomiting and gastric disturb- 
ance, quickening the pulse, and acting on the secretions. It also acts upon the brain, inducing vertigo, dizziness, 
headache, &c. It is used in nervous diseases. Of late it has come again somewhat into use, and i®@given in powder 
or infusion. 
Prats L.—Represents the plant in flower, and the enlarged organs of reproduction. 
LOBELIACE A. 
JUSSIEU. 
LOBELIADS. 
Essenttat Cuar.—Herbaceous plants, or shrubs, with milky juice. Leaves alternate, without stipules. Flowers 
axillary or terminal. Calyz superior, five-lobed or entire. Corolla monopetalous, in estivation valvate, irregular, in- 
serted in the calyx, five-lobed, or deeply five-cleft. Stamens five, inserted into the calyx alternately with the lobes of 
the corolla; anthers cohering; pollen oval. Ovary inferior, with from one to three cells. Ovules very numerous, 
either attached to the axis, or parietal. Style simple. Stigma surrounded by a cup-like fringe. Fruct capsular, one 
or more celled, many seeded, dehiscing at the apex. Seeds attached either to the lining or the axis of the pericarp. 
Embryo straight in the axis of a fleshy albumen ; radicle longer than the cotyledons, pointing to the hylum. 
Many of this family have a milk-like juice which is acrid and poisonous. In the one which is most active in 
this country, a peculiar alkaloid principle exists. They inhabit, it appears, every continent but Europe. 
LOBELIA INFLATA... 
LINNAUS. 
INDIAN TOBACCO. 
Sex. Syst.—Pentandria, Monogynia. 
_ Gen. Cxar.—Calyz five lobed, tube obconical, ovoid or hemispherical. Corolla cleft longitudinally from above, 
bilabiate, the tube cylindrical or funnel-shaped, straight; the upper lip usually smaller, and erect; the lower generally 
spreading, broader, three-cleft, or more rarely three-toothed. The two inferior, or occasionally all of the anthers, 
barbed at the point. Ovary inferior or semi-superior and (in species very much alike) somewhat free. (De Candolle.) 
Specir. Cuar.—Height from six inches to two feet. The small plants simple, the larger much branched. Root 
fibrous, annual or perennial according to location. Stem erect angular, ciliated by the decurrence of the leaves, hairy; 
branches axillary. Leaves one to two or three inches long, half to an inch wide, sessile ovate, rather acute, unequally 
ee sinnate dentate and pilose. Spikes or racemes peduncled, in the axils of the leaves. Segments of the calyx 
re — Corolla pale blue, tube prismatic and cleft above, the segments spreading, acute, the two upper lanceolate, 
eae . — ne oval. Anthers collected into an oblong curved body. Style filiform. Stzgma curved and closed 
i a ae SOS ary oblong, Striated. Capsule two-celled, turgid oval, thin and membranous, ten-angled, reticu- 
. ng 1, crowned with the calyx. Seeds numerous, small oblong, brown, with reticulated ridges under a lens. 
= eee tin is a North American plant; it is found over the United States from the Lakes to Carolina, 
nena Nip sieacitis : ae ie It flowers in July and August, and continues to flower late in the autumn, TIpelh 
tis Midd sia, snipee : ‘A e herbaceous portion is collected for medicinal use in August. It is abundant through 
dish: tak cis tens © aia side, but 1s principally derived from the Shaker establishment at New Lebanon. The 
sebnaed Gr bobagor exhales a disagreeable odour, and has an acrid taste. "When collected, dried carefully and 
n bundles, it has a fresh appearance and preserves its odour and taste. When packed in square forms as 
