$10_ ORD. XVIII. Asperifolice. CYNOGLOSSUM OFFICINALE. 
ROOT perennial, long, tapering, blackish on the outside, whitish 
within. Stalk two or three feet in height, erect, grooved, villous, 
leafy, branched. Radical leaves large, on long footstalks, exceed- 
ing,a foot in length, ovate, pointed, covered with a short shining 
greyish down; daubieie leaves sessile, numerous, lanceolate, broad 
towards the base. Flowers of a dull red, changing to a bluish 
colour, and placed on slender peduncles, in spikes. Segments of 
the calyx five, deeply divided. Corolla monopetalous, funnel- 
shaped: tube cylindrical, thick, half the length of the calyx: 
limb concave, cut into five roundish segments: nectary consisting 
of five purple scales, closing together, ‘ane inserted at the mouth 
of the tube. Filaments five, very short. Antherz oblong, green. 
Germens four, smooth, of a yellowish green colour, supporting a 
tapering style, terminated by a blunt emarginated stigma. Cap- 
sules four, roundish, rough. Seeds solitary, ovate, gibbous, pointed, 
smooth. 
It is common in this country, and usually found in waste grounds, 
or sides of roads, and flowers in June and July. 
Hounds-tongue, thus named from the shape of the leaves, like 
most of the other plants of this natural order, is succulent, and 
somewhat mucilaginous, especially its root, which, for medicinal 
purposes, has been generally preferred to the leaves. The taste 
of the plant is bitterish, and its smell is disagreeable, resembling 
that of mice. Cynoglossum is reported to be deleterious, and the 
dingy lurid appearance of its leaves, peculiar to poisonous herbs of 
the narcotic kind, seems to favour the opinion ; nor are facts wanting 
to confirm it. A relation is given of a whole family at Oxford, 
who, by mistake, ate the boiled leaves of this plant for those of 
comfrey : soon afterwards they were all seized with vomiting, stupor, 
sleepiness, &c. which symptoms continued alternately for almost 
forty hours, and with such severity, that one person died.* But 
* Vide Morrison Hist. Oxon. tit. p. 450. Haller also, C _ Stirp. Helv. n. 
587.) cites a similar instance, mentioned by Dr. Blair; but the plant used does 
. not appear to have beem the eynoglossum. See Blais’s esha: Obserzations, 
-° wide 
