562 



MEDICAL BOTANY. 



A genus of a single species peculiar to North America, closely allied to 

 Daphne in its physical properties. 



D. palustris, Linn. — Leaves alternate, subsessile, oval, entire. 



Linn., Amazn. iii. 12; Torrey, Man. 170; Bigelow, Am. Med. Bot. ii. 

 37 ; Rafinesque, Med. Flor. i. 158. 



Common Names. — Leather- wood ; Moose- wood ; Rope- bark. 



Fig. 244. 



Description. — A shrub 

 from three to seven feet high, 

 with spreading, crooked, ar- 

 ticulated branches. The 

 leaves are alternate or scat- 

 tered, nearly sessile, ovate, 

 entire, downy when young, 

 and smooth and membranous 

 when full grown, paler be- 

 neath, not appearing until 

 after the flowers. The flow- 

 ers are in threes, on cohering 

 peduncles ; they are yellow, 

 and consist of a tubular 

 eight-toothed calyx, which is 

 drooping, and contracted at 

 the middle and base. The 

 corolla is entirely wanting. 

 The stamens are eight, longer 

 than the corolliform calyx, 

 and alternately longer ; with 

 rounded anthers. The ovary 

 is ovate, and supports a long 

 filiform, curved style, which 

 is inserted laterally, and is 

 terminated by an acute stig- 

 ma. The fruit is a small, 

 oval berry, of an orange co- 

 lour, containing a single seed. 



The Leather-wood is 

 found in most parts of 

 the United States, but is 

 more abundant in the 

 Atlantic than in the 

 Western States ; it occurs in shady swamps or on the banks of streams. It 

 flowers very early in the season, when the shrub is wholly destitute of leaves. 

 The bark is very fibrous, and has been used for cordage, and might be ad- 

 vantageously employed in the arts, as by proper preparation it affords a 

 strong fibre from which an excellent paper can be made. No complete ana- 

 lysis has been made of it, but it appears to contain an Acrid resin, a Bitter 

 extractive, Mucilage, &e. 



Medical Uses. — The berries are emetic and poisonous. The fresh bark 

 applied to the skin causes redness and vesication, but the sores caused 

 by it, as is the case generally with those produced by the vegetable epispas- 

 tics, do not heal readily, and sometimes degenerate into obstinate and ill-con- 

 ditioned ulcers. When chewed it causes much heat and pain in the mouth, 

 followed by salivation, and hence has been found useful in toothache and other 

 complaints where the acrid masticatories have been found serviceable. When 

 administered internally in small doses it induces a sense of heat in the sto- 



D. palustris. 



