POLYGONACE.^. 



stance rather coriaceous, their colour greyish, or glaucous. Stipules 

 membranous, acute, often red, with a few remote brownish ribs. 

 Flowers axillary, 2 or 3 together, on simple stalks, small, but often 

 singularly beautiful under a magnifier, being variegated with white, 

 crimson, and green. Stamens 8, rarely 10, short and broad. Ovary 

 triangular. Styles 3, short, with thick, blunt stigmas. Fruit acutely 

 triangular, of a shining black, the food of many small birds. Smith. 

 Fruit said to be emetic and cathartic. 



750. P. barbatum Linn. sp. pi i. 518. Thumb, fl. cap. 385. 

 Meisner polyg. p. 80. China, East Indies, Cape of Good Hope, 

 and elsewhere. 



Stem herbaceous, rufous. Leaves lanceolate ; stipules sheathing, 

 lax, pilose, truncated, fringed with long bristly ciliae. Spikes long, 

 virgate. Flowers hexandrous, trigynous, remote. Considered a 

 diuretic at the Cape of Good Hope ; in India the infusion of its leaves 

 is prescribed by native practitioners to alleviate the pain of severe colic. 

 Burnett. 



751. P. amphibium Linn. sp. pi. 517. Eng. Bot. t. 435. Fl. 

 Lond. t. 28. Eng. FL ii. 232 Common in ponds, ditches and 

 wet places. 



Stems creeping, root-like, with numerous whorls of red or white 

 fibres; round, branching in the lower part, leafy. Leaves stalked, 

 generally floating, ovate-lanceolate, more or less acute, single ribbed, 

 minutely serrated, smooth, bright green, slightly heartshaped at the 

 base. Stipule sheathing, abrupt, wavy, smooth. Flowers crimson, in 

 dense, ovate, stalked, bracteated heads. Stamens 5. Styles 2, united 

 at base ; stigmas globular, red. Fruit ovate, compressed, with 2 

 obtuse edges. The root-like stems of this Polygonum bear some 

 resemblance to sarsaparilla,' and according to Coste and Willemet, they 

 are substituted for the foreign drug by the herbalists of Nancy ; these 

 authors also report, that it resembles true sarsaparilla in its properties, 

 and that the apothecaries.and druggists of Lorraine use it in preference. 

 Burnett. 



