KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 85 
IV. PHYTOLOGY AND THERAPEUTICS. 
THERAPEUTICAL NOTES AND DESCRIPTION OF PARTS OF 
MEDICINAL PLANTS GROWING IN KANSAS. 
BY L. E. SAYRE, LAWRENCE. 
Read before the Academy October 28, 1897. 
There have been several more or less extensive lists of plants growing in Kan- 
sas made by different members of the Academy, reported at various meetings, 
and some work has been done in separating and commenting upon the medicinal 
character of those which have remedial action, but thus far there has not been 
any attempt to give a careful description of the parts of the plants used as medi- 
cine, and little has been said of medical virtues. At the present meeting of the 
Academy I shall confine myself to but two or three Kansas plants which have 
somewhat recently come to notice as medicinal, one of them taking a somewhat 
prominent position. In future meetings of the Academy I shall endeavor to col- 
lect information adding to the list of local medicinal plants, and shall endeavor 
to give such information as is not usually published in books of reference. 
As I make reference to these I shall not try to arrange them in any scientific 
order. The three I shall comment upon at this meeting are plants which have 
come to my notice as medicinal within the last few years. The first two of which 
I shall speak have no wide reputation, and it is a question whether they deserve 
any more than a passing notice; but the plants are interesting, as may be seen. 
I refer to the Cucurbita perrenis Gray (wild pumpkin, buffalo gourd, man-in-the- 
ground), and the Jpomea leptophylla (wild morning-glory). The roots of these 
plants came to my notice about three years ago. They were sent to me asking 
for an analysis of their constituents, parties claiming for the roots remarkable 
tonic and aperient qualities. An analysis was made, and a report of the same was 
published in the proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 1895, 
p- 301. It is not necessary, therefore, for me to give the analysis in detail—suf- 
fice it to say that the analysis demonstrated the fact that the medicinal virtues, 
if any, resided in an oleo-resinous extractive, soluble in alcohol and in chloroform. 
Diluted alcoholic tinctures of the roots were very bitter, and fairly represented 
their virtues. 
The wild pumpkin is found in western Kansas, where it is dry and sandy. 
In some parts of the state, where irrigation has been carried on, this root has 
become quite a pest. It is extremely large, and difficult to remove. It cannot 
be uprooted by an ordinary scraper, but has to be chopped out with the axe. 
The fruit, a spherical pepo, is smooth, yellow, and about the size of an orange. 
Within the hard, coriaceous rind, beside the fibers, there is a white, spongy, 
medullary matter and numerous ovate seeds. When the vine disappears in the 
winter the fruit remains in heaps as if someone had spilled a box of oranges. 
For this fruit some have claimed the purgative qualities of the Asiatic colocynth 
—one of the most valuable cathartics in the list of materials of medicine. The 
colocynth apple resembles the wild pumpkin fruit somewhat, but the former is 
very much more bitter. The thought has occurred that the colocynth apple 
might be profitably raised in the western part of our state. There is quite a 
