45 



The Partridge Bony i^Mitchella repens) is a small evergreen, trail- 

 ing shrub, with whitish, fragrant Howers, and a scarlet edible fruit. 

 The whole plant has medical properties, and is said to be employed 

 by Indian squaws to facilitate parturition. It is tonic and astrin- 

 gent. 



The Yellow Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) is one of the most 

 beautiful climl ing shrubs of the Southern States. It ascends lofty 

 trees, and forms leafy bowers, extending from one tree to the other; 

 and, in its flowering season, in February and March, it perfumes the 

 atmosphere with its delicious odor. The leaves are perennial, and 

 the flowers are large, tubular, and of a bright yellow color, and are 

 said to be poisonous. The root is medicinally used. Its medical 

 virtue has been accidentally discovered by a Mississippi planter, who, 

 being effected by a febrile disease, ordered his servant to dig up a 

 certain kind of root in his garden, and to prepare a tea from it, 

 The servant dug up, by mistake, the root of the yellow jessamine, 

 boiled it into a tea, and administered it to the patient, who was soon 

 afterwards affected with nausea and muscular debility, but these 

 effects gradually subsided, and with them the fever. Since that time 

 the root has been employed in intermittent, remittent, typhoid and 

 yellow fever, in inflammation of the lungs, and other diseases. 



HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 



MEDICINAL, ORNAMENTAL AND ECONOMICAL. 



The Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) does not, like the other 

 species of asclepias, emit a milky juice when wounded. Its root, 

 which is perennial, is irregularly tuberous, branching, and has an 

 acrid, nauseous taste. Medicinally it is diaphoretic and expectorant. 

 It has been administered in pleurisy and pneumonia, and may be 

 taken in powder, infusion, and decoction. 



The Long moss, (Tillandsia usneoides), which is not a moss as its 

 name imports, but bears a regular, small, greenish flower, and be- 

 longs to the order of flower-bearing plants. It has been considered 

 for ages as useless, giving to the forest where it abounds a funereal 

 aspect. It has recently become an important article of commerce, 

 as a substitute for horsehair in the manufacture of matresses. After 

 the outer covering of the flexible stem has been rotted off by expos- 

 ure in the open air, there remains a black hairlike bundle of fibres, 



