no NAT. ORDER. SENTICOSiE. 



fruit is a fleshy, smooth, oval berry, flesh-colored, formed of the tubu- 

 lar part of the calyx, and contains many long round seeds. It is a 

 native of England, and is usually found growing in woods and 

 hedges, flowering in June and the early part of July. 



The flowers of this shrub make a very conspicuous and beau- 

 tiful appearance, when they are cultivated either as an ornament in 

 the garden, or in the hedge, where they are so extensively grown. 

 The fruit, called heps or hips, has a sourish taste, and in some parts 

 of England is very much used in preparing a conserve ; for this 

 purpose the seeds and chaflTy fibres are to be carefully removed, for, 

 if these prickly fibres are not entirely scraped off from the internal 

 surface of the fruit, the conserve is liable to produce great irrita- 

 tion on the primse viae. 



Medical Properties and Uses. The officinal preparation of the 

 fruit of this tree, is considered by modern practitioners to possess 

 but little, if any, medicinal virtue, although it is extensively used in 

 some parts of Europe, and highly esteemed as useful in many disor- 

 ders, as dropsies, calculous complaints, dysenteries, haemorrhages, 

 etc., but at the present time it is not considered of sufficient impor- 

 tance, to place much reliance on its powers. It is agreeable to the 

 taste, and well suited to give form to the more active articles of the 

 Materia Medica. 



