CLASSIFICATION OF ANGIOSPERMS. 537 



Pulsatilla, which was formerly official, is obtained from sev- 

 eral species of Anemone growing in Europe. These are perennial 

 herbs (Fig. 206) with basal leaves which are deeply lol)ed or 

 dissected, those of the stem forming a kind of involucre near the 

 flower. The flowers are rather large and with numerous i)etaloid 

 sepals. The fruit is a densely woolly achene in those species which 

 are used in medicine. The entire plant is used and contains an 

 acrid volatile oil, the principal constituent of which is an anemone 

 camphor (anemonol). The latter is easily decomposed into 

 anemonon, which on fusion becomes exceedingly acrid. Similar 

 principles are found in other species of Anemone as well as in 

 certain species of Ranunculus (buttercup) and Clematis Jltalba of 

 Europe. 



Very many of the other Ranunculaceae contain active princi- 

 ples. The glucoside helleborein, which resembles digitalin in its 

 medicinal properties, is found in Hellehorus niger, the black 

 HELLEBORE of Europc, and probably in other species of Helleborus, 

 as well as in Actoca spicata, the baneberry of Europe, and Adonis 

 vernalis, the false hellebore of Europe and Asia. 



c. BERBERIDACE^ OR BARBERRY FAMILY.— The 

 plants of this family are herbs or shrubs with simple or compound 

 leaves, and flowers either single or in racemes (Figs. 134, E: 

 81, T). The fruit is a berry or capsule. 



Berheris Aquifolium (trailing mahonia) yields the unofficial 

 drug berberis. It is a low, trailing shrub with 3- to 7-compound, 

 scattered leaves. The leaflets vary from oval to nearly orbicular, 

 are obtuse at the apex, slightly cordate at the base, finely reticulate, 

 and spinose-dentate. The flowers are yellow and in dense ter- 

 minal racemes. The fruit is a blue or purplish berry. 



Caulophyllum thalictroides or blue cohosh of the Eastern 

 United States is a perennial herb with a thick rhizome and large 

 ternately compound leaves (Fig. 300). The flowers are small 

 and greenish-purple. The fruit is peculiar in that it resembles a 

 berry and consists only of blue, globular, naked seeds, the pericarp 

 being ruptured and falling away soon after fertilization. The 

 rhizome and roots were formerly official. It is a horizontal, much 

 branched rhizome with broad, concave stem-scars, and numerous 

 roots; it is grayish-brown externally, sweetish, slightly bitter and 



