86 Eupatorium maculatum. 



Whorls about four or five inches apart. The leaves decrease in size 

 as they approach the top of the stem, where the corymb commences. 

 They are oval or broad-lanceolate, serrate, acuminate, somewhat 

 bullated or blistered. Veins very numerous and net-like, of a purplish- 

 red colour, and quite prominent on the under disk, and considerably, 

 though less so on the upper. Scrratures occasionally very deep and 

 large, particularly on the longer leaves. Corymb fastigiate and dense, 

 general and partial peduncles, flowers, stamens, and calices, being all 

 of the same red hue. Grows along the borders of meadow-drains 

 and rivulets in great abundance, flowering in August and September. 



The whole plant is intensely bitter, so that the fingers in collecting 

 it become intolerably so to the taste. By this property, and its deeper 

 red colour and lower stature, it may readily be distinguished from all 

 the other red flowering species of Eupatorium. A cold infusion of 

 the whole plant, including stems, affords one of the most grateful 

 aromatic, and intense bitters I have ever met with — two drachms be- 

 ing sufficient to impregnate a pint of cold water with a sufficient bit- 

 terness to be tolerated by the stomach. Hot water takes the bitter- 

 ness more quickly, but not more certainly. As a subsidiary remedy 

 in the treatment of all cases of disease which require tonics, and par- 

 ticularly the bark and other bitter roborants, it has been, in my own 

 extensive practice with it, highly useful. I discovered the medicinal 

 virtues of this plant several years ago, and recommended it to my bro- 



