56 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
mucilage, and the root is rather farinaceous. When dried, the roots, boiled in water, 
yield a fine red colour, which may be used asa dye. The juice of the leaves also will 
curdle milk, as well as rennet, and in some countries is used instead of it for that 
purpose. The salt of sorrel, binoxalate of potash, is much used for bleaching straw 
and removing ink stains from linen, and is often sold in the shops under the 
name of “essential salt of lemons.” Its poisonous qualities are not commonly known, 
or doubtless it would often be substituted for oxalic acid, Dr. Taylor, in his work on 
Poisons, relates three cases of poisoning with this substance, two of which proved 
fatal. In one of the latter, a lady took by mistake half an ounce of the salts of sorrel, 
instead of crcam of tartar. She had scarcely swallowed the draught, when she was 
seized with violent pain and convulsions, and died in eight minutes. The substance 
for which this poisonous salt is most likely to be mistaken is the bitartrate of potash, 
or cream of tartar. Lime water furnishes a ready means of distinguishing these two 
salts, It precipitates both of them white, but the precipitate from the bitartrate of 
potash is redissolved on adding to it a small quantity of a solution of tartaric acid, 
while that from the binoxalate is not redissolved. It may be as well to mention 
another simple means of distinction—the colour of ink is immediately discharged by 
warming it with a few grains of binoxalate, but is unaffected by the bitartrate of potash. 
SPECIES XV.—RU MEX ACETOSELLA. Lin. 
Prats MCCXXIV. 
Billot, Fl. Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 2138. 
Leaves rather thin, slightly succulent, the radical ones elliptical 
or oblong-elliptical or strapshaped-hastate, with the basal lobes long, 
widely diverging or divaricate, often curving towards the apex of the 
leaf, rarely absent ; stem leaves similar but smaller and on shorter 
stalks; the uppermost ones sessile and amplexicaul. Ochre laciniate, 
silvery. Branches of the panicle rather numerous, erect or ascending- 
ercct, leafless. Pedicels about as long as the fruit petals, articulated 
immediately below the calyx, spreading halfsvay round the stem. 
Flowers diccious. Sepals applied to the base of the fruit petals. 
Petals scarcely enlarged in fruit, subherbaceous, coloured, roundish 
oval, truncate-wedgeshaped at the base, obtuse, entire, not extending 
beyond the nut, not reticulated, without tubercles, but with the 
midribs slightly thickened at the base. Leaves acid, dull green, not 
glaucous. 
On heaths, in meadows, pastures, waste places, cultivated ground, 
&c. Very common, and generally distributed. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial Spring, Summer. 
Rootstock creeping. Stems numerous, slender, generally decumbent 
at the base, than erect, 2 inches to 2 feet high, slightly branched or 
nearly simple up to the panicle. Radical leaves on long petioles; the 
lamina } to 2 inches long, varying very much in breadth, generally 
