NAT. ORDER. 



Schrophularia. 



CHELONE GLABRA. BALMONY. 



Class XIV. DiDYNAMiA. Order II. Angiospermia. 



Gen. Char. Calyx, five-parted, with three bracts. Corolla, ringent, 

 ventricose, sterile. Filament, shorter than the rest. Anthers, 

 woolly. Capsules, two-celled, two-valved, Seeds, membrana- 

 ceously margined. 



Spe. Char. Stem, smooth. Leaves, opposite, lanceolate, oblong, 

 accuminate, serrate. Flowers, in dense spikes. 



The root of this plant is perennial and fibrous ; the stems are 

 numerous, erect, branched near the top, smooth, bluntly four cor- 

 nered, and rise from three to five feet in height ; the leaves are 

 opposite, tapering, from five to six inches long, pointed, edged with 

 acute teeth, of a dark green color when fresh, almost black when 

 dry, and intensely bitter ; the Jloiccrs are terminal, of dilferent 

 colors in different varieties, white, spotted, tinged in some instances 

 with a delicate shade of red, a,nd of a most singular shape, resem- 

 bling the head of a snake with its open mouth ; they are disposed 

 in a cluster, as may be seen in the drawing. It does not bloom 

 until late in the autumn. 



This valuable plant was cultivated and extensively employed 

 as a medicine in the sixteenth, and beginning of the seventeenth 

 century. Salmond, in his English Herbal, published in 171l, 

 describes this jilant and several of its varieties, as possessing 

 highly valuable medical properties; since which time it appears to 

 have fallen into disuse, or forgotten; but has recently been revived 



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