N. ORD=LILIACES:. 176 
Tribe.—MELANTHIEZ. 
GENUS.—VERATRUM,* TOURN. 
SEX, SYST.—POLYGAMIA MONCECIA. 
VERATRUM VIRIDE. 
AMERICAN WHITE HELLEBORE. 
SYN.—VERATRUM VIRIDE, AIT.; V. ALBUM, MICHX. (NOT LINN.); V. 
ALBUM, VAR. (?) REGEL; V. PARVIFLORUM, BONG. (NOT MICHX. ); 
V. ESCHSCHOLTZII, GRAY; HELONIAS VIRIDIS, BOT. MAG. 1096. 
COM. NAMES.—AMERICAN WHITE HELLEBORE, FALSE HELLEBORE, 
INDIAN POKE, MEADOW POKE, SWAMP HELLEBORH, ITCH WEED, 
INDIAN UNCUS, PUPPET ROOT, EARTHGALL, CROW POISON; (FR.) 
VERATRE VERT; (GER.) GRUNER GERMER. 
A TINCTURE OF THE FRESH ROOT OF VERATRUM VIRIDE, AIT. 
Description.—This pubescent perennial grows to a height of from 2 to 5 feet. 
foot coarse, thick, fleshy, and more or less horizontal; the lower part throwing 
off numerous white fibres, S¢evz erect, simple, stout, and leafy to the top. Leaves 
3-ranked, broadly oval, and strongly pointed, plaited, clasping by a sheathed base, 
and gradually decreasing in size upward to mere lanceolate bracts. Jnflorescence 
a terminal pyramidal panicle, 8 to 18 inches long, composed of dense, spike-like, 
spreading, loosely floral racemes; flowers monceciously polygamous, greenish or 
olivaceous green. Sefa/s 6, ovate-oblong, moderately spreading, separate, con- 
tracted at the base, clawless and glandless, and entirely free from the ovary. 
Stamens 6; filaments free from, and shorter than, the sepals, recurving ; anthers 
extrorse, reniform, confluently 1-celled at the apex. Ovu/es ascending, anatro- 
pous; sfyles none; stigmas 3, ligulate, separate down to the ovary, recurved, Fruzt 
a 3-horned and carpelled, septicidal capsule; seeds 8 to 10 in each carpel, flattish- 
oblong, with a broad membranaceous margin and an acute apex; eméryo oval; 
albumen sarcous. ' 
Although much like the V. a/éum of Europe in its minor points, yet our species 
is strikingly different in general appearance. The American species has a’much 
more pointed leaf and its panicle looser and more compound; the racemes of V. 
album being compact, and, as a whole, cylindrical; while those of V. wide are 
scattered, compounded, and scraggly. 
History and Habitat.—Veratrum viride is indigenous to North America, 
where it habits low grounds from Canada southward to the mountain meadows 
of Georgia, flowering in the north in July, and in the south in April or May. 
* Vere, truly; atrem, black, 
