DENTARIA LACINIATA. CUT- LEAVED TOOTH-WOR T. 59 



species) have a pungent, mustard like taste, and are used by the 

 natives of the mountains of North America, from Pennsylvania 

 to Canada, instead of mustard, under the name of Pepper-wort." 

 This pungency is shared in by the roots of other closely allied 

 plants of the cruciferous order, of which the horse-radish, the 

 common garden radish, and even the cabbage and turnip under 

 some circumstances, are familiar examples. But the ancients 

 believed it possessed greater merits than that of a mere condi- 

 ment. Culpeper, the quaint old herbalist, says of the English 

 form: "It is under Mars, and is a good vulnerary. It is recom- 

 . mended to stop all kinds of fluxes and hemorrhages; helps to 

 consolidate wounds and fractures; especially the root." Salmon, 

 another herbalist of the time of Queen Anne, says, pointedly, 

 " they are dedicated to the curing of wounds." 



This medical character is of course drawn from the European 

 kinds, and chiefly from the Dentaria bulbifera ; but the species 

 are so closely allied that it is difficult to distinguish them, and 

 hence a property found in one may be looked for in most. In 

 the case of our present plant, several species have been made of 

 it by various botanists at different times. When referring to one 

 yet supposed to be distinct, Dentaria hcle^'ophylla, Mr. Sereno 

 Watson says, in his Bibliographical Index, " unidng D. laciniata, 

 maxima, and ^mdtifiday How well justified Mr. Watson is in 

 this suggestion is confirmed by a remark of the editor of the 

 " Botanical Gazette. ' In the first volume he says : " It is one of 

 our earliest spring flowers, and one of the most variable and 

 perplexing species I ever met. A long list might be made of the 

 various forms in which it occurs. Dentaria maxima, D. hetero- 

 phylla, D. laciiiiata, and D. multifida, undoubtedly run together 

 in this locality. Specimens of these different species have been 

 found growing in the same patches, and even from the same root! 

 The leaves vary from endre to finely dissected. In some speci- 

 mens there are three leaves in a whorl ; in some there are but 

 two leaves, opposite or alternate. In short there is no kind of 

 division or posidon of leaves which is not represented in this 



