MEDICINAL PLANTS 



MBLILOTUS 



467 



of the Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin met with 

 in British India, three vols, Kegan Paul, Trench, 

 Triibner & Co., London., 1890-1893 ; H. W. P'elter 

 and J. U. Lloyd, King's American Dispensatory, 

 third edition, two vols., The Ohio Valley Company, 

 Cincinnati, Ohio, 1898 (numerous illustrations); 

 P. A. Fliickiger d,nd Daniel Hanbury, Pharmaco- 

 graphia, A History of the Principal Drugs of Vege- 

 table Origin, second edition, Macmillan & Co., 

 London, 1879; H. A. Hare, Charles Caspari, Jr., 

 and H. H. Rusby, The National Standard Dispen- 

 satory, Containing the Natural History, Chemistry, 

 Pharmacy, Actions and Uses of Medicines, Lea 

 Bros. & Co.; Philadelphia and New York, 1905 

 (numerous illustrations) ; Laurence Johnson, A 

 Manual of the Medical Botany of North America, 

 William Wood & Co., New York (illustrated); J. 

 U. Lloyd and C. G. Lloyd, Drugs and Medicines of 

 North ' America, Vol. I and part of Vol. II, Cin- 

 cinnati, Ohio, 1884-1887 (illustrated); Charles P. 

 Millspaugh, American Medicinal Plants: An Illus- 

 trative and Descriptive Guide to the American 

 Plants Used as Homeopathic Remedies, two vols., 

 1887 (many colored plates) ; Francis Peyre Porcher, 

 Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, 

 Medical, Economical and Agricultural, Being also a 

 Medical Botany of the Southern States, Walker, 

 Evans & Cogswell, Charleston, S. C, Revised 

 edition, 1867; H. C. Wood, J. P. Remington and 

 I. P. Sadtler, The Dispensatory of the United 

 States of America, J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 

 1907 (numerous illustrations). Bulletins of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture : Alice 

 Henkel, Weeds Used in Medicine, Farmers' Bulletin 

 No. 188 (1904); Peppermint, Bulletin No. 90, Part 

 III (1905); Wild Medicinal Plants of the United 

 States, Bulletin No. 89 (1906); Alice Henkel and 

 G. F. Klugh, Golden Seal, Bulletin No. 51, Part VI 

 (1905); W. W. Stockberger, The Drug Known as 

 Pinkroot, Bulletin No. 100, Part V (1906); Rodney 

 H. True, Cultivation of Drug Plants in the United 

 States, Yearbook of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture, 1903; Progress in Drug Plant Culti- 

 vation, Yearbook of the IJnited States Department 

 of Agriculture, 1905. Special articles on various 

 drug plants may be found in the files of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Associa- 

 tion, and the various pharmaceutical periodical 

 publications. The agricultural aspect of the cul- 

 ture of ginseng, golden seal, and others, is espe- 

 cially noticed in a monthly publication called 

 '.'Special Crops," edited by C. M. Goodspeed, 

 Skaneateles, N. Y. 



MELILOTUS (MelUotus alba.) Leguminosce. (Sweet, 

 Bokhara, Stone and Large White Clover, and 

 White Melilot.) Pig. 692. 



By /. F. Duggar. 



Melilotus is a genus of leguminous plants, usually 

 biennial, occurring commonly as weeds. One form, 

 Melilotus alba, is of value as a green-manure, forage 

 and bee plant. 



Plants of the genus Melilotus are erect herbs 

 with three-foliate leaves, dentate leaflets, and 



mostly white or yellow flowers in slender racemes. 

 The most important species are M. alba, Desv., and 

 M. officinalis. Lam. Both are generally regarded as 

 weeds except in the prairie region of Alabama 

 and Mississippi, where the former serves a useful 

 purpose for forage and for soil renovation. Melilo- 

 tus maerostachys i s 

 promising by reason of 

 its being less bitter 

 than most other spe- 

 cies. M. Indiea, All., 

 is an introduced weed 

 in the- western part 

 of the United States. 

 Its yellow flowers are 

 smaller than those of 

 M. officinalis. At the 

 Arizona Experiment 

 Station, M. Indiea, lo- 

 cally known as " sour 

 clover," proved to be a 

 most satisfactory win- 

 ter cover-crop for or- 

 chards, seed sown in 

 October affording an 

 immense mass of green 

 material to be plowed 

 under in April. Brit- 

 ton states that there 

 are about twenty spe- 

 cies of Melilotus, na- 

 tives of Europe, Africa 

 and Asia. A number of 

 species have been 

 tested at the Cali- 

 fornia Experiment 

 Station, some of 

 them affording 

 large yields of green 

 material of untried 

 feeding value. In Cali- 

 fornia, M. officinalis is 

 a pest in grain-fields 

 because it imparts its 

 odor to threshed grain 

 and to the fiour made 

 objectionable to bakers 



Fig. 692. Sweet clover (JlfcK- 

 lotus alba). 



therefrom, which is very 

 The price of such "clover- 

 scented" grain is reduced by buyers. 



Melilotus alia is an erect, branching plant, three 

 to nine feet tall, bearing small white flowers in 

 racemes. It is biennial, rarely blooming the first 

 year. Like other members of the genus, it has a 

 bitter taste and a characteristic pleasant odor when 

 bruised. The chief need for improvement in the 

 plant is to decrease this bitter principle. In gen- 

 eral appearance this plant bears a close resem- 

 blance to alfalfa, up to the time of the appearance 

 of blooms, but the stems of the former are coarser 

 and less leafy. 



This plant is widely distributed over the United 

 States and Canada, growing freely along roadsides, 

 in vacant city lots, and in other waste places. It 

 is hardy, holding its own against weeds and even 

 against Johnson-grass, with which it is sometimes 

 sown. It is recognized as a weed throughout the 



