FAMLIY HERBAL. $39 



Goat's Thorn, Tragacantha. 



A little white looking prickly shrub, native 

 of the East, but kept in our gardens. It is not 

 above two or three feet high, very spreading and 

 full of branches. The stem is of a tough and very 

 firm substance, covered with a whitish rough bark, 

 the branches are as tough, and the bark is pale 

 but smoother. The leaves are long and narrow ; 

 they are each composed of a great many pairs of 

 smaller set on a middle rib, which is continued 

 into a thorn, and when these leaves fall off, remains 

 a white thorn of that length. The flowers are 

 white and small ; they are of the shape of a pea 

 blossom, but flatter ; the pods which follow are 

 short and flat. 



No part of the shrub itself is used, but we have 

 a gum produced by it, and called by its name in 

 the shops ; this is what they also call gum dragant, 

 it is white and tough and is in long twisted pieces ; 

 it sweats out of the bottom of the trunk in the heat 

 of summer. It is good in coughs arising f rom a 

 sharp humour : and in sharpness of urine, and 

 sharp stools, but it is a disagreeable medicine ; it 

 is very difficultly powdered, and the solution is not 

 pleasant. 



Thorough wax. Perfoliate, 



A very beautiful wild plant among our corn, 

 distinguished by the stalk growing through the 

 leaves. It is three feet high. The stalk is 

 round, firm, upright, whitish, and toward the top 

 divided into some branches. The leaves are broaa 

 n ad eval ; the stern runs through them toward the 



