CRUDE DRUGS. 639 



Description. Stem quadrangular, i to 4 mm. in diameter, 

 varying in color from yellowish-green to purplish-red, mostly 

 glabrous below and hairy above. Leaves ovate, ovate-oblong, or 

 ovate-lanceolate, opposite, 1.5 to 8 cm. long, 0.5 to 2.5 cm. broad; 

 apex acute or acuminate ; base acute, rounded or sub-cordate ; 

 margin coarsely serrate ; upper surface dark green, glabrous ; 

 under surface light green, nearly smooth, veins of the first order 

 diverging at an angle of 65, curving upward and anastomosing 

 near the margin ; petiole 2 to 10 mm. long. Flowers axillary and 

 solitary above or in i-sided racemes; calyx campanulate, toothed, 

 about 2 mm. long ; corolla white or blue, about 6 mm. long, the 

 limb 2-lipped ; stamens 4, didynamous, hairy, the anthers of the 

 upper pair with 2 pollen sacs, the lower with one ; style unequally 

 2-cleft and ovary deeply 4-parted. Fruit consisting of 4 ellip- 

 soidal, distinctly tuberculate, light brown nutlets about i mm. 

 long, borne on an enlarged torus known as the gynobase, and 

 enclosed by the persistent bilabiate calyx, the upper part of which 

 becomes helmet-shaped after fertilization, whence the name 

 " Skullcap." Odor slight. Taste bitter. 



Constituents. A bitter crystalline glucoside scutellarin; a 

 small quantity of volatile oil, of which little is known. 



Allied Plants. Several species of Scutellaria growing in 

 the United States are sometimes substituted for the official drug, 

 nearly all of which have the flowers in terminal panicled racemes. 

 Heart-leaved skullcap (Scutellaria cordifolia) is densely gland- 

 ular pubescent, even the corolla being hairy; Hairy skullcap {S. 

 pilosa) is pubesceiit below, with numerous glandular hairs above, 

 and the corolla is nearly glabrous; Hyssop skullcap {S. integri- 

 folia) has linear entire upper leaves; in Marsh skullcap {S. 

 galericulata) the flowers occur in the axils of the nearly sessile, 

 narrow leaves. The European skullcap (S. altissima) has broad, 

 ovate, glabrous leaves and terminal panicles of blue flowers. 



Substitutes. Scutellaria canescens. a plant growing west 

 of the Mississippi, furnishes much of the drug on the market. 

 The plant is more robust than 6'. lateriflora: the leaves are oblong, 

 petiolate, 10 to 12 cm. long, 3 to 5 cm. broad, very hairy on the 

 under surface, with prominent veins, and crenate-dentate mar- 

 gin ; and the flowers are large, blue and in terminal racemes. 



