42 MEDICINAL HERBS AND POISONOUS PLANTS 



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unisexual, Avliich means that no single flower possesses 

 both stamens and pistil. Further, the same plant bears 

 only one kind of flower. We can therefore dit^tinguish 

 between male plants bearing stamens only and female 

 plants bearing carpels only. It is easier to identify the 

 plant from the leaves (see fig. 20). Each stem bears in 

 tlie upper part several pairs of stalked, large, rough 

 leaves of the shape shown in fig. 20. If the plant also 

 bears a flower, this will consist, if a male flower, of a 

 calyx of 3 sepals together with about 9 stamens; or if 

 a female flower, of a calyx of 3 sepals enclosing a pistil 

 of 2 fused carpels the styles of which are free. 



For its identification, reliance must be placed chiefly 

 on the peculiar appearance of the plant as a whole, the 

 leaves being large for such a lowly plant, and the cluster 

 of small green flowers having a distinctive character of 

 their own (fig. 20). Again, many of the plants have 

 barren flowers — that is, flowers devoid of stamens or 

 carpels — and these grow on long stalks Avhich arise from 



the uppermost leaves. These present characteristics 

 which are readily recognized when looking for the plant. 

 On account of the disagreeable odour of Dog's Mercury 

 animals very rarely eat it, but the plant has been known 

 to prove fatal to sheep when given to them mixed with 



herbage. Within 



gation depended on proof being led as to whether certain 

 horses had or had not eaten Dog's Mercury. When 

 subjected to boiling or to drying the poison is rendered 

 innocuous, and the leaves may be eaten by cattle with 

 impunity; in fact, in certain parts of Germany the leaves 

 are eaten as a vegetable, and in France they are toiled 

 and then served to pigs. The seeds are dangerously 

 purgative, and even fatal results are on record. 



Annual Mehcuey {Mercitrialis ctmiua).— This is a 



familiar garden annual in some parts of the country. 



