ty 
| GLECOMA HEDFRACEA. ORD, XIX. Verticillate. eee g 
grow in -verticilla, or whorls, of Phede, four, or five together; on 
short peduncles, placed about the footstalks of the leaves; the calyx 
is tubular, permanent, striated, rough, and divided into five unequal 
pointed segments; the flower is blue, monopetalous, bilabiated, 
with aslender compressed tube; the upper lip is cleft, erect, blunt, 
the lower lip is expanded, large, divided into three lobes, of which 
the middle one is the largest, and is notched at the end; the bractez 
are small, tapering, and grow from the peduncles; the filaments are 
four, two long and two short, covered by the upper lip, and the 
anthere of each pair approach so-as to form a cross; the style is 
filiform, the stigma is bifid, and pointed ; the seeds are four, oval, 
naked, and lodged in the calyx. It is a well known plant, growing 
commonly under hedges, and flowering in April. 
Ground-ivy has a peculiar strong smell," and its taste is bitterish, 
and. somewhat aromatic. It is one of those plants which ‘was for- 
merly in considerable estimation, and supposed to possess great 
medicinal powers, but which later experience has been unable to 
discover ; in proof of this, 1ts name is omitted in the catalogue of 
the Materia Medica by the London College. The qualities of this 
plant have been described by different authors, as pectoral, deter- 
gent, aperient, diuretic, vulnerary, corroborant, errhine, &c.—and 
it has been variously recommended for the cure of those diseases 
to which these powers seemed most adapted, but chiefly in pulmo- 
nary *. and nephritic‘ complaints. In obstinate coughs, it is a 
* Dr. Withering has observed, that the leaves are ‘‘ beset underneath with hollow 
dots, in which are glands secreting an essential oil, and above with little eminences, 
but which do not secrete any odoriferous oil; for this surface being rubbed gives out 
“no peculiar scent, whereas the under surface vatlons a pleasant reviving scent.”’. J. c. 
» Willis, Pharm. rat. sect. 1. c. 6. Morton, Phthisiologia, lib. 3: Cap. 5. 
Sauvages Nosol. ‘Tom. 3. P. 2. cap de phthisi. Ettmuiler, Oper. T. p. 639. 
Scardona Aphoris. lib. 2. p. 69. River. Prax. P. 1. py 397. See also Ray, 
Gerard, Miller, and others. 
© Paulli Quadrip. bot. p. 74. Sennertus. Oper, T. . 576. Plater. Prax. . 
Tom. 2. p. 499. Reusn. seseecihe Med. P- 90. apnd Welch Mead Mon. et yaa: 
med. p. 97, 
No. 27.—vou. 2. AL 
