‘394 ORD. XXIII. Siliquosee. cocHLEARIA OFFICINALIS. 
sessile, or embracing the stem, but towards the bottom they are 
frequently upon short broad footstalks; the flowers are cruciform, 
and stand pon short peduncles, terminating the branches in thick 
clusters; the calyx consists of four leafits, which are oval, blunt, 
concave, gaping, deciduous, and whitish at the margin; the petals 
are four, white, oval, spreading, and twice the length of the calyx; 
the filaments are six, four long and two short, greenish, tapering, 
and crowned with yellow anthere; it has no style, and the germen 
becomes a small roundish compressed pod, containing reugh seeds, 
It is found on the mountains of Scotland, Cumberland, and Wales, 
but more commonly about the Sea shores: it flowers in April and 
May. 
We have figured this plant from a-specimen obtained from Mr, 
Curtis’s botanic garden at Brompton, where it differs in no respect 
from the same plants growing in their native soil, a circumstance 
which induces many to cultivate Scurvy-grass in gardens for medi- 
cal use. It has an unpleasant smell, and a warm acrid bitter taste. 
“ Its active matter is extracted by maceration both in watery and 
in spirituous menstrua, and accompanies the juice obtained by 
expression. The most considerable part of it is of a very volatile 
kind; the peculiar penetrating pungency totally exhaling in the 
exsiccation of the herb, and in the evaporation of the liquors, 
Its principle virtue resides in an essential oil, separable in a very 
small quantity, by distillation with water.”*—Scurvy-grass” is 
antiseptic, attenuant, aperient, and diuretic, and is said to open 
obstructions of the viscera and remoter glands, without heating 
or irritating the system; it has been long considered as the most 
_* Lewis M. M. 242. ** The oil is so ponderous as to sink in the aqueous fluid, 
but of great volatility, subtility, and penetration. One drop dissolved in spirit, 
or received on sugar, communicates to a quart of wine, or other liquors, the smell 
and taste of Scurvy-grass.” Lewis I. c. 
® This species is now preferred to all the other species of Cochlearia fer its medi- 
cal use. 
* See the experiments of Sir John Pringle, 
