390 FAMILY HERBAL. 



a great many thick fibres. It is of a very strong and 

 disagreeable smell. 



The root is used ; it is best dried and given in 

 powder, or in infusion .1 It is an excellent medicine 

 in nervous disorders. It is said that it will cure the 

 falling sickness, but its good effects against head- 

 achs, low-spiritedness, and tremblings of the limbs, 

 are well known. 



Vanilla Plant. Vanilla. 



A climbing plant, native of America. If 

 grows to thirty f^eet or more in length, but the 

 stalk is slender and weak, and climbs upon trees to 

 support it. It is round, striated, green, and tough 

 The leaves are numerous and placed irregular! v ; 

 they are a foot long, considerably broad, and like 

 those of the common plantain, of a dusky green, 

 and have high ribs. The flowers are small in shape 

 like a pea blossom, but of a greenish white colour 

 The pods are long and flatted, of a brown colour, of 

 a very fragrant smell, and full of exceedingly small 

 seeds. 



This pod is the part used ; it is a cordial and 

 restorative ,- it opens obstructions, and promotes the 

 menses ; it operates by urine, and by sweat, but it is 

 not much used. Some put them into chocolate, 

 to give it a flavour, a'nd to make it more cordial and 

 restorative ; this is done in the grinding up the nuts 

 to the cake, and we bey it by the name of Vanilla 

 chocolate. 



Vervain. Verbena 



A common wild plant, about onr path-ways, 

 with slender spikes, and a few little flowers. It is 

 two feet high ; the stalks are numerous, square, very 



