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BETONICA OFFICINALIS, ORD. XIX. Verticillate. 355 
- ROOT perennial, tapering, woody, brownish, furnished with 
long white fibres. Stalks usually more than a foot in height, erect, 
square, simple, channelled towards the top, nearer the base hairy. 
Lower leaves on footstalks, cordate, or lance-shaped, notched, ob- 
tuse, veiny, somewhat hairy, and wrinkled: upper Jeaves narrower, 
opposite, reflexed. Flowers purple, in spikes composed of several 
whorls. Bracteze abundant, placed under the fiowers, of the length 
of the calyx. Calyx permanent, tubular, divided at the edge into 
five narrow teeth. Corolla monopetalous; tube longer than the 
calyx, bending inwards, below smooth and white, above purple, 
downy: upper lip roundish, entire, erect; lower one divided into 
three segments, of which the middle one is the broadest. Filaments 
four, longer than the tube, two long and two short, furnished with 
purple anthere. Germen divided into four parts. Style tapering, 
white, longer than the filaments,. and terminated by a bifid stigma. 
Seeds four, of an irregular shape, and lodged in the calyx. 
It is common in woods and heaths, flowering in August and 
September. 
The description of the Beraum by Dioscorides applies equally to 
many of the other verticillated plants: he also states it to be pur- 
gative, so that it seems very doubtful if by that name he meant the 
plant here figured. 
The leaves and tops of the Betony have an agreeable but weak 
smell: to the taste they discover a slight warmth, accompanied 
with some degree of astringency and bitterness. They yield very 
little essential oil, insomuch that only a few drops can be obtained 
from a large quantity of the herb. 
Betony, aE many other plants formerly in great medical estima 
tion, is at this time almost entirely disregarded. Antonius Musa, 
physician to the Emperor Augustus, filled a whole volume with 
enumerating its virtues, stating it as a remedy for no less than 
forty-seven “disorders ; and hence in Italy arose this Proverpiy 
compliment You have more virtues than Betony.* 
* The Italians also introduced the maxim Vende la tonica et compra la Betonica 
