ALIUM APARINE. ORD. IX. Stellatee. 177 
ROOT branched, fibrous, annual. © Stalk quadrangular, three or 
four feet in height, weak, climbing, jointed branched: angles beset 
with short prickles, which are bent backwards, and fasten hold of 
_ neighbouring plants. Leaves standing at the joints of the stalk 
six or eight together, lanceolate, narrow, finely pointed, on the 
upper side rough, with sharp prickles. Flowers small, white, on 
rough footstalks. Calyx none. Corolla very small, wheel-shaped, 
divided into four oval pointed segments. Filaments four, white, 
shorter than the corolla. Anther yellow. Germen below the ~ 
corolla, double, rough. Styles swo, short. Stigmata globular. 
Fruit two dry roundish berries, slightly adhering together, covered 
with hooked prickles. Seeds solitary, kidney-shaped. 
It is common in cultivated ground and ae sane its 
flowers from June till September. 5 
This succulent plant is destitute of odour, but to the taste it is 
bitterish, and somewhat acrid. Dioscorides * speaks of an ointment 
made of the bruised herb, mixed with lard, as an useful application 
to discuss strumous swellings; and Gaspari,” an Italian, adopted a 
similar practice with great success. He also informs us, that a decoc- 
tion of the plant, employed in the way of fomentation, was found 
to be very efficacious in swellings of the glands of the neck, which 
followed a certain epidemic at Verona. Dr. Cullen, however, relates 
‘that he tried the Aparine in some glandular indurations, but with- 
out deriving any advantage. 
It is said by Mayerne, that three ounces of the j juice of the plant, 
taken twicea day i in wine, were experienced to be an useful aperient 
and diuretic in incipient dropsies. But the character in which the 
Aparine has of late been chiefly esteemed, is that of an antiscorbutic; 
for this purpose, a tea-cupful of its expressed juice is to be taken 
every morning for nine or ten days. When the fresh plant cannot 
be procured, it may be used in a dried state as tea.° 
*M. M. Lib. 3. cap. 104. 
> See Osservazioni Storiche, Mediche, &c.1731.p.17. ‘© M.M. vol. 2. p. 37. 
4 See Med. & Philos. Commentaries, vol. 5. p. 326. Also Edward’s Treatise on 
the Goose-grass, or Clivers, and its efficacy in the cure of the most inveterate Scurvy. 
15. 2Y 
