TREES AND SHRUBS FURNISHING MEDICINAL BARKS. 



41 



Description of plant. — The cotton plant in flower or with the bursting bolls 

 showing the fluffy white fiber is very handsome. It belongs to the mallow 

 family (Malvaceae), and ranges from about 1 to 4 feet in height, with a woody 

 and somewhat branching stem. The leaves of the American Upland cotton, 

 Gossi/piuin hirsutum, are 5 lobed, the lobes sharply pointed. The flowers when 

 they first open are creamy white, later on turning purple, and the bracts are 

 deeply cleft. The 4 to 5 celled cotton bolls are roundish oval, bluntly pointed 

 at the top, green at first, but turning brown as they mature, bursting open 

 (September to November in the Southern States i. and disclosing the fine 

 fiber that surrounds and completely hides the seeds, and which forms the 

 "cotton" of commerce. (Fig. 30.) This cotton is picked from the bolls by 

 hand, and sent to the cotton gins, where the seed is separated from the lint 

 by machines known by that name. The seed, aside from its use for -planting, 

 is employed for fertilizing and feeding 

 purposes, and an oil is also expressed 

 therefrom. 



Description of bark. — Cottonroot bark 

 is official in the United States Pharma- 

 copoeia, and the article of commerce 

 consists of long, thin bands, or quills, 

 flexible, of a brownish yellow color on 

 the outside, showing faint ridges and 

 dots or lines. Sometimes the entire 

 outer corky layer, which is thin, is 

 wanting, or there are brownish orange 

 patches where this thin layer has 

 rubbed off or worn away. The inner 

 surface of the bark has a whitish, 

 silky, shining appearance, marked with 

 fine lines. The long, tough bast fibers 

 separate into papery layers. There is 

 no odor, but a faintly acrid and astrin- 

 gent taste. 



Collection, prices, and uses. — The 

 roots are taken up as late as November 

 or December, but before frost, washed, 

 the bark removed with knives, and 

 carefully dried. The fresh bark is regarded as more reliable than the old bark. 



At present cottonroot bark is paid for at the rate of from 3 to 5 cents a pound. 



This bark, with its emmenagogue and parturifacient properties, forms a valu- 

 able remedy in the hands of the physician. 



The cotton (the hairs of the seed), freed from impurities and deprived of 

 all fatty matter, is also official in the United States Pharmacopoeia. 



An oil is expressed from the seed, and various domestic uses have been made 

 of the seed and also of the flowers and leaves. 



Fig. 36. — Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), 

 leaves, flowers, and bolls. 



DOGWOOD. 



Cornus florida L. 



Other common names. — Cornus, flowering dogwood, American dogwood, Vir- 

 ginia dogwood. Florida dogwood, boxwood, New England boxwood, false box- 

 wood, American cornelian tree, flowering cornel, Florida cornel, white cornel, 

 Indian arrowwood, nature's-mistake. 

 139 



