ARCTIOM LAPPA, ORD. III. Composite. 33 
THE root is biennial, subcylindrical, long, simple, externally of 
a dark brown colour, internally white, and sends off many slender 
fibres: the stalk is erect, roundish, grooved, villous, purplish, above 
an inch in diameter, three feet high, and alternately branched: the 
leaves are alternate, patent, heart-shaped, veiny, above of a dark 
green colour, underneath whitish; the lower leaves are very large, 
and stand upon long footstalks, which are grooved like the stem: the 
calyx is common to all the florets, imbricated, globular, the exterior 
scales are entangled in fine woolly threads, firm, elastic, and their 
extremities are polished and hooked; the flowers are numerous, 
disposed in heads, and stand alternately upon. footstalks on the 
branches; the corolla is compound, the florets purple, tubular, 
each having the limb divided into five pointed segments; the stamina 
are five, white, and filiform; the antherze unite into a tube, are - 
of a bluish colour, and project beyond the corolla; the germen is 
somewhat triangular, the styles white, and longer than the stamina, 
and the stigma bifid: the seeds are oblong, brown, and have irregular 
rough surfaces. 
This plant is common in waste grounds and road sides; it flowers 
in July and August, and is well known by the burs, or scaly heads, 
which stick to the clothes, a circumstance from whence the word 
Lappa is supposed to be derived.t The Pharmacopcoeias direct the 
root for medicinal use: it has nosmell, but tastes sweetish, and | mixed 
‘as it were with a slight bitterishness and roughness, Its virtue, 
according to Bergius, is mundificans, diuretica, diaphoretica;* and 
many instances are upon record in which it has been successfully 
employed in a great variety of chronic diseases, as scurvy, rheuma- 
tism, gout, Iues venerea, and pulmonic complaints.” We have never 
had an opportunity of observing the effects of this root, except as a 
+ Lappa dici potest vel awo re Awew prehendere vel Aanrew lambere. Ray, 1. c. 
2 Mat. Med. 653. » Henricus III. Galliarum Rex, a Petro Pena decocto radi- 
eum Lappe ab hac Iue sanatus fuit. Vide Reverius, Obs. 41. 
The young stems of this plant, stripped of their rind, are boiled and eat like 
asparagus. When raw, they are good with oil and vinegar. Withering, 864. I, c. 
No. 3. I 
