466 



MEDICINAL PLANTS 



MEDICINAL PLANTS 



crowns in early spring. The plants are grown in 

 the seed-bed or in the field, the seed being sown in 

 March. The plants are set in three-foot rows, 

 eighteen inches apart in the row; if seeds are used 

 instead of plants, they are sown at the rate of two 

 to four pounds per acre and thinned to eighteen 

 inches when the plants are established. Seed sown 

 in the field should be barely covered with soil. 

 Cultivation is as for ordinary garden crops. The 

 driad flowering tops and leaves are used in medicine. 

 An acre should yield about 2,000 pounds of tops. 



Thyme {Thymus vulgaris, Linn.). Labiatce. (G. 

 P. Klugh.) 



A low, shrub-like perennial, eight inches to one 

 and one-half feet high, forming a dense clump of 

 slender upright stems, bearing many small, sessile, 

 ovate to oblong, entire, pale leaves with many oil- 

 bearing glands; flowers small, lavender-colored, in 

 short, spike-like terminal groups. It is a common 

 plant of kitchen-gardens used for flavoring pur- 

 poses. The herb is distilled for oil, from which the 

 disinfectant " thymol " is obtained. 



It likes a mellow, loamy soil, and grows well 

 from seed. Planting is done about the first of 

 March in three-foot rows, at the rate of about one 

 or two pounds per acre ; the plants are left thick 

 in the drill. The grower should cultivate thoroughly, 

 and cut the plants at the end of the growing sea- 

 son for distillation. An acre should yield five or six 

 tons of green herb the first year, which will give 

 about twenty pounds of oil. Plantings in Washing- 

 ton, D. C, have been winter-killed after being cut 

 down to the ground, while bushes left uncut lived 

 over. 



Valerian (Valeriana officinalis, Linn.). ValerianacecB. 

 (S. C. Hood.) Fig. 2632, Cyclopedia of Ameri- 

 can Horticulture. 



Valerian is a perennial herb with a stout, hori- 

 zontal or ascending rootstock, bearing fibrous roots ; 

 stem one and one-half to three feet high, somewhat 

 branching above, with a few short hairs ; lower 

 stem-leaves pinnately divided or lobed into many 

 lanceolate or oblong leaflets ; flowers small, closely 

 crowded into terminal clusters, lilac or lavender in 

 color, fragrant. It is a common ornamental known 

 as "garden heliotrope." The underground parts are 

 dug, sliced and dried to form the valerian of the 

 crude drug market. 



Valerian root has been grown in certain sections 

 of New York and New England, and as this is the 

 form known as English valerian the quality is very 

 fine. 



The soil should be light and well dressed with 

 stable manure. Soil not well drained or having 

 much clay should be avoided, because the plant 

 does not do well, and also because of the difiiculty 

 in cleaning roots grown on this soil. The land 

 should be plowed in the fall, and very early in the 

 spring should be harrowed until very fine. In some 

 sections it is the custom to spade the soil by hand 

 with a fork and pick out all lumps. 



The plant is propagated by root-divisions of the 

 previous year. The plants are left in the ground 



until wanted, when they are dug and the divisions 

 made. A good plant should give six to eight divi- 

 sions. These divisions should be planted in rows 

 two feet apart, and ten inches apart in the row. 

 They should root at once and send up a rosette of 

 leaves in two weeks. The crop must be well culti- 

 vated throughout the entire summer and kept free 

 from weeds. 



The roots are ready to be dug about October 1. 

 The masses of roots are usually washed in running 

 water to remove the soil. They are then cut so 

 that drying will be even. The drying is done in a 

 specially constructed kiln with artificial heat, usu- 

 ally at 125° to 150° Fahr. When well dried the 

 root may be packed in barrels for market. The 

 yield should be about 2,000 pounds of dry root per 

 acre. 



Wormseed, American {Chenopodium anthelminti- 

 cum, Linn.). ChenopodiacecB. (T. B. Young.) 



An annual, branching, unsightly weed character- 

 istic of waste grounds, having a large fibrous root 

 system (which under favorable conditions may live 

 over winter in the South) and a stout, straggling, 

 smooth stem, two to four feet high, bearing smooth 

 leaves, various sinuately cut and lobed or almost 

 entire, and long, dense, nearly leafless spikes of 

 inconspicuous flowers, followed by small, shining 

 black seeds enclosed in a green calyx. It occurs 

 wild in eastern and southern United States. It has 

 long been used in medicine for its anthelmintic 

 properties, a quality due to the volatile oil which is 

 distilled from the tops and fruits. Its cultivation 

 has been practiced experimentally in South Carolina 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 The center of wormseed production in this country, 

 of oil as well as seed, has been Westminster, Mary- 

 land. 



Loamy soils are best suited to the plant, but it 

 grows well on any type of soil, and develops an 

 abundant crop of herbage and fruit in the fall. 

 Fertilizers with a liberal amount of phosphates, 

 nitrate, and organic nitrogen and potash, are the 

 most satisfactory to the plant. 



The seeds are sown directly in the field in rows 

 three to four feet apart. When the plants are up 

 they are thinned out with a hoe to a distance of 

 about eighteen inches. The cultivation is not un- 

 like that given to other crops of a similar kind. A 

 flat cultivation is best, as the crop has to be mowed. 

 About July, before the seeds begin to turn brown- 

 ish, the plants are cut with a mower and allowed 

 to remain in the field a day to dry, and are then 

 housed. Then the seeds are threshed, sieved clean 

 and sacked, ready for market. 



A fair yield per acre of seeds is about 1,000 

 pounds. The plant yields on distillation 0.3 to 0.6 

 per cent of volatile oil, the fruits being the parts 

 richest in oil. Wormseed oil is pale or yellowish 

 and has a penetrating, disagreeable odor. It has 

 the property of killing intestinal parasites. 



Literature. 



General: Wm. Dymock, C. J. H. Warden and 

 David Hooper, Pharmacographia Indica, A History 



