24 FLORA HOMGEOPATHICA. 



by the inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe, more par- 

 ticularly of Sweden, as a popular remedy against hooping- 

 cough, bilious attacks, etc, L. Odhelius also recommended its 

 employment in lepra, pemphigus, and other skin affections; 

 and by others in dysentery and diarrhoea. Hahnemann (in 

 Iluf eland's Journal, bd. ii. p. 207) recommended its use in a 

 peculiar form of epidemic grippe, putting on the form of ague, 

 and accompanied with rheumatic pains. The Swedes wash their 

 oxen and swine with a decoction of it to kill lice ; and in Lapland 

 the branches are placed among the grain, from the reputed power 

 of the plant to keep off mice. It was formerly used in Swit- 

 zerland to supply the place of hops in the manufacture of beer ; 

 but it is apt to cause a most pernicious kind of intoxication and 

 obstinate headache. The leaves are used by the Canadians in 

 their hunting excursions as a substitute for tea; and by the 

 Norwegians it is called Finne the, or tea of the Laplanders. 



Description. — Ledum palustre is a shrub, flowering from 

 April to July. Stems shrubby, erect, slender, much branched, 

 from one to three feet high, the young branches covered with a 

 close, rusty- coloured down. Leaves, principally in the younger 

 branches, scattered, horizontal, or reflexed, on short petioles, 

 strap-shaped, quite entire, with re volute margins, channelled, 

 smooth, of a dark green on the upper surface, paler on the 

 under, the midrib clothed with close, rust-coloured down; the 

 younger leaves upright, very downy. Flowers numerous, in 

 dense, simple, terminal, bracteated corymbs. The whole plant, 

 especially when bruised, has a strong aromatic, oppressive 

 scent, somewhat like hops. 



Geographical Description. — North of Europe: very plen- 

 tiful in Lapland, Silesia, Bohemia, Denmark, Norway, and 

 Sweden. North America : in the mountain lakes round New 



York; Canada; and amongst the Vosges mountains in France. 

 Ireland (?). 



Localities.— In marshy places and spongy bogs. In Ireland, 

 detected by Sir Charles Gieseche on the north-west coast of 



