GOLDEN SEAL. 115 



fourth to three-fourths of an inch in thickness, and contains a 

 large amount of yellow juice. (Fig. 48) 



In the dried state, the rootstock is crooked, knotty, and 

 wrinkled, from 1 to 2 inches in length, and from one-eighth to one- 

 third of an inch in diameter. It is of a dull-brown color on the 

 outside and breaks with a clean, short, resinous fracture, showing 

 a lemon-yellow color inside. After the rootstock has been kept 

 for some time, it will become greenish yellow or brown internally 

 and its quality impaired. The cup-like depressions or stem scars 

 on the upper surface of the rootstock resemble the imprint of a 

 seal, whence the most popular name of the plant, goldenseal, is 

 derived. The rootstock as found in commerce is almost bare, the 

 fibrous rootlets, which in drying become very wiry and brittle, 

 breaking off readily and leaving only small protuberances. 



The odor of the dried rootstock, while not so pronounced 

 as in the fresh material, is peculiar, narcotic, and disagreeable. 

 The taste is exceedingly bitter, and when the rootstock is chewed, 

 is a persistent acridity, which causes an abundant flow of salive. 



Collection, prices, and uses. — The root should be collected 

 in autumn after the seeds have ripened, freed from soil, and care- 

 fully dried. After a dry season goldenseal dies down soon after 

 the fruit is mature, so that it often happens that by the end of 

 September not a trace of the plant remains above ground ; but if 

 the season has been moist, the plant sometimes persists to the be- 

 ginning of winter. The price of goldenseal ranges from $1 to 

 $1.50 (this was in 1907) a pound. 



Goldenseal, which is official in the United States Pharma- 

 copoeia, is a useful drug in digestive disorders and in certain 

 catarrhal affections of the mucous membranes, in the latter in- 

 stance being administered both internally and locally. 



