CLASS XXIII. ORDER II. 403 



anthers. Germs three, cohering, with acute recurved styles as 

 long as the stamens. A part of the flowers are barren, and have 

 only the rudiments of styles, so that the plant is strictly polyga- 

 mous. The seed vessel consists of three capsules united toge- 

 ther, separating at top and opening on their inner side. Seeds 

 flat, imbricated. — June. — Perennial. 



The root of this plant, when taken internally, produces violent 

 effects, and is dangerous in considerable quantities. It is chiefly 

 used in the country as an external application in cutaneous affec- 

 tions. From its great alfinity in habit to the Veratrum alburn, 

 an European species, which has lately acquired considerable 

 celebrity as a remedy in gout ; the American plant is particu- 

 larly entitled to the attention of physicians. 



DICE CI A. 



415. PANAX. 

 Panax Q,uinquefolium. Ginseng. 



American Medical Botany, PI. xxix. 



Root fusiform; leaves three, qninate; leafets oval, 

 acuminate, serrate, petioled. 



The root of the Ginseng consists of one or more fleshy, oblong 

 and somewhat fusiform portions, of a whitish color, transversely 

 wrinkled, and terminating in various radicles. Its upper portion 

 is slender and marked with the scars of the former shoots. Stem 

 smooth, round, green, with often a tinge of red, regularly divided 

 at top into three petioles, with a flower stalk at their centre. 

 Petioles round, smooth, swelling at base. Leaves three, com- 

 pound, containing five, rarely three or seven leafets. The partial 

 leafstalks are given off in a digitate manner, and are smooth, 

 compressed and furrowed above. Leafets oblong, obovate, 

 sharply serrate, acuminate, smooth on both sides, with scattered 

 bristles on the veins above. The flowers, which are small, grow 

 in a simple umbel on a round, slender peduncle, longer than the 

 petioles. The involucrum consists of a multitude of short subu- 

 late leafets, interspersed with the flower stalks. These stalks or 

 rays are so short as to give the appearance of a head, rather than 

 an umbel. In the perfect flowers the calyx has five small, acute 



