ASTERACE^E. 407 



Linn., Sp. PI. 1184; Torrey and Gray, Fl. ii. 414; Woodville, t. 115; 

 Stephenson and Churchill, ii. 96. 



Common Name. — Tansy. 



Foreign Names. — Tanaisie, Fr. ; Tanaceto, It. ; Rheinfarn, Ger. 



Tansy is a native of Europe, but is naturalized in many parts of the United 

 States, and is cultivated in gardens in both countries, as is also a variety with 

 curled leaves, known under the name of Curled tansy. The leaves and 

 flowers are used ; they have a disagreeable, peculiar, and strong odour, and a 

 warm, bitter taste. These qualities they impart to water and alcohol, and on 

 distillation, afford a yellowish-green essential oil, having the peculiar smell of 

 the plant; besides, they contain a peculiar acid, which has been called the tan- 

 acetic, bitter resin, fatty oil, wax, &c. The medical properties are owing to 

 the oil and bitter resin. 



Medical Properties. — Tansy is tonic, stomachic, and anthelmintic, but is 

 rarely employed by the physician, but is in high repute in domestic practice. 

 It was found useful in dyspepsia, hysteria, and intermittent fever, and like all 

 the other stimulating herbs, in obstructed menstruation. There is a common 

 belief that it acts specially on the uterus, and hence the oil has frequently 

 been resorted to, for the production of abortion, and several cases of death 

 have ensued from the practice. As a vermifuge, it certainly possesses some 

 power, but is far inferior to several other articles, and therefore is seldom used 

 in this country. 



Antennaria. — Gartner. 



Heads many -flowered, dioecious ; all the flowers tubular ; in the pistillate flowers fili- 

 form. Scales of involucre imbricated, appressed, scarious, coloured. Receptacle convex 

 or nearly flat, naked. Style 2-cleft in the fertile flowers. Achenia somewhat terete. 

 Pappus a single series of setiform or capillary scabrous bristles in the pistillate flowers ; 

 clavate in the staminate. 



A small genus of herbaceous, rarely suffruticose plants, with sessile or 

 decurrent leaves ; mostly woolly or tomentose. The species occur in many 

 parts of the world ; eight are natives of the United States. Many of the 

 species have been employed in medicine, but none of them are of sufficient 

 importance to require a detailed account of them. Among the native kinds, 

 the A. margaritaceum or Everlasting has some reputation in domestic prac- 

 tice as an anodyne and pectoral in diseases of the respiratory organs ; it is 

 also a mild astringent, and has proved beneficial in bowel complaints. It is 

 used externally as a cataplasm in painful tumours, contusions and sprains, 

 and is certainly very efficacious in relieving pain and disposing to sleep, 

 often succeeding where the Hop poultice has proved ineffectual. The 

 A. plantagineum and dioicum or White plantain are popularly supposed to 

 be beneficial in snake-bites, and are among the articles said to have been 

 used by the Indians for this purpose; they are both pectoral and somewhat 

 demulcent. These species it should be noticed have usually been included 

 in Gnaphalium, but are now considered as forming a distinct genus, which 

 was originally constituted by Gsertner, and has been adopted by R. Brown, 

 De Candolle, Torrey and Gray, and others. 



Arnica. — Linn. 



Heads many-flowered, radiate; radial flowers pistillate and often furnished with sterile 

 stamens ; disk flowers tubular, perfect. Scales of the involucre lanceolate, equal, some- 

 what in two series. Receptacle flat, fringed or hairy. Tube of the corolla hairy ; limb 

 of the disk flowers 5-toothed; style with long pubescent branches, either truncate or 



