SPERMATOPHYTA PAPAVERACEAE 



485 



all liable to be eaten, on acount of its peculiar blood red color, which is forbiddingly sus- 

 picious, and more especially because of an exceedingly acrid taste which would render the 

 chewing and swallowing of a poisonous quantity an act of heroism. It is exceedingly com- 

 mon throughout the northeastern United States, and in a number of localities within a 

 few miles of this city. Th< root also contains chelerythrin, homochelidonin and protopin. 



4. Chelidonium L, 



Erect branching herbs, with alternate deeply pinnatifid leaves ; yellow 

 juice and flowers; 2 sepals; 4 petals; stamens numerous; distinct styles; 

 capsule linear, dehiscent to the base ; seeds smooth, shining, and crested. 



Distribution. A genus of one species, native to Europe, but widely natural- 

 ized in North America. 



Chelidonium majus L. Celandine 



Flowers consisting of 2 sepals which are ovate, yellowish, soon falling; 

 corolla 4 petals, contracted at the base; stamens numerous, shorter than the 

 petals. 



Poisonous and Medical properties. The alkaloid chelerythrin C 21 H 1? NO 4 

 is identical with the sanguinarin of the last plant. Chelidonin, C 2Q H 19 NO 3 

 H 2 O, an alkaloid existing particularly in the root, is colorless and bitter. 

 Homochelidonin, consisting of three basic substances is found in Bocconia, San- 

 guinaria, Adlumia etc. This plant produces congestion of the lungs and liver; 

 it is also an excessive irritant, and has a narcotic action upon the nervous system, 

 in its action resembling gamboge. On this point Dr. White says : 



Mr. Cheney informs me that he has known the plant to poison the skin, if handled so 

 as to crush the leaves or stem. To indicate this extent to which it is used in medicine, 

 it may be stated that a collector in North Carolina offers fifteen hundred pounds of the 

 leaves for sale. 



CRUCIFERAE. Mustard Family. 



Herbs or rarely woody plants with acrid, watery juice; alternate leaves 

 without stipules ; flowers in racemose or corymbose clusters, cruciform of 4 

 deciduous sepals and 4 petals, placed opposite each other in pairs, spreading and 

 forming a cross; stamens 6, 2 shorter; 1 pistil, consisting of 2 united carpels; 

 fruit a pod either much longer than broad (silique), or short (silicle), or in- 



Fig. 254. Common Celandine 

 (.Chelidonium majus). Poison- 

 ous to the skin. (After Fitch). 



