478 - ORD, XXXVI. Mullisilique, nettesorus rorripus, 
like the Helleborus niger into simple leaves, which are commonly 
eight or nine, long, narrow, lanceolated, serrated, and of a dark 
green colour; the scaly leaves, placed at the ramifications of the 
flower stem, are smooth, trifid, alternate, and often purplish, but 
those near the flowers are oval and pointed; the flowers are nume- 
rous, terminal, pendent, of a roundish shape, and stand upon 
_ peduncles, forming a sort of umbel; the petals are five, oval, con- 
cave, persistent, of a pale green colour, and their margins are 
usually tinged with purple; the stamina are the length of the 
petals; the antherze are white; the germina three, hairy, and 
shaped similarly to those of the Helleborus niger. This plant 
grows wild in many parts of England, and flowers about February. 
The Helleborus niger, though constantly used in medicine since 
the time of Hippocrates, was the only species of Hellebore* known 
in the Materia Medica of our pharmacopeoeias, till the late intro- 
duction of this plant by the London College, probably upon the 
authority of Dr. Bisset, who recommends the leaves as possessing 
extraordinary anthelminthic powers. The smell of the recent 
plant is extremely fetid, and the taste is bitter, and remarkably 
acrid, insomuch, that when chewed, it excoriates the mouth and 
fauces; it commonly operates as a cafhartic, sometimes as an 
emetic, and in large doses proves highly deleterious.© The leaves, 
the only part noticed by the College, have been long domestically 
employed in this country for their vermifuge effects, and are thus 
spoken of by Gerard:—“ The leaves of bastard Hellebor, dried in 
an oven, after the bread is drawne out, and the pouder thereof 
taken in a figge or raisin, or strawed upon a piece of bread spread 
with honey, and eaten, killeth worms in children exceedingly.’* 
Bisset says, “ The great bastard black Hellebore, or Bear’s-Foot, 
® Tt must be observed, that the Helleborus Albus of the shops, is a Veratrum, 
: Vide Threlkeld’s Irish Herbal; and in the Oxford Magazine for March 1769, 
p- 99. fatal cases are related by John Cook of Oxford. 
¢ Gerard 1. c. 
ee 
