132 



REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



branching peduncles 3 to 6 inches long, the upper ones singly on stems 

 2 to 3 inches long, the whole forming a panicle of pyramidal form. The 

 flowers are about an inch in diameter when expanded, of a greenish 

 yellow color. The calyx consists of four narrow lanceolate acute seg- 

 ments. The corolla is of a yellowish color sprinkled with small pur- 

 plish spots. It is composed of four oblong abruptly acute lobes, each 

 lobe bearing about the center a curiously fringed round gland. There 

 are four stamens a little shorter than the corolla and situated on its base. 

 The style is about as long as the stamens, with a short two-lobed stigma 

 at the apex. The pod is oblong and flattened, pointed with the persist- 

 ent style, of a firm, tough, texture, and about three-fourths of an inch, 

 long, contaning eight to twelve small, flattened, roundish, and wing 

 margined seeds. This plant is found sparingly from Western New York 

 and Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, southwestward to Missouri and Ar- 

 kansas, and southward along the Alleghanies to North Carolina and 

 Georgia. It is popularly known as wild or American columbo. It re- 

 quires two or three years to come into flowering, which takes place from 

 May to July. The root is of a sweetish or bitter taste, and has long 

 been employed medicinally as a mild tonic similar in its properties to 

 the columbo of Mozambique, but believed to be of inferior value to that 

 plant, which belongs to a different natural order, viz., Menisjtermacew. 

 Plate XII. 



Hydrastis Canadensis— Orange-root; Yellow Puccoon. 



A small and rather inconspicuous plant of the order Bammculacew, 

 growing not very abundantly in rich woods in the Middle and Western 

 States, and in the mountainous parts of North Carolina and Georgia. 

 It is a perennial herb, seldom growing more than a foot high, with a 

 simple hairy stem, with two or three small scale-like leaves at the base 

 and two leaves near the top, one sessile, the other with a petiole, where 

 the stem diverges so as to appear forked. The stem is terminated by 

 a single, small, greenish flower. This flower, which is less than half an 

 inch in diameter, has a calyx of three small sepals which drop off as 

 soon as the flower expands. There are no petals, but a large number, 

 sometimes forty or fifty stamens with thick filaments and very short 

 anthers. In the center of these there are about a dozen small pistils, 

 which finally develop into a round, close head of crimson berries, each 

 of which contains one or two seeds. The two leaves are, when the 

 flower expands, only an inch or two in diameter, but they continue to 

 expand until they become 6 to 10 inches in diameter, being heart- 

 shaped at the base, roundish in outline and divided into five to seven 

 lobes, which are coarsely and doubly toothed. The root-stock is thick 

 knotted and yellow, and gives rise to numerous thickish fibrous roots, 

 which are also yellow. This root-stock and roots are the portions em- 

 ployed. The Indians used the roots for dyeing yellow. It is very 

 bitter and has for a long time been employed as a tonic in domestic 

 practice, and within the last twenty -five years has been admitted into 

 the official list of the United States dispensatory, and its medical prop- 

 erties have been very fully investigated. It has been much employed 

 in dyspepsia, in disease of the liver, in malarial fevers, &c. Plate 

 XIII. 



Lobelia inflata — Lobelia; Indian Tobacco. 



An annual herbaceous plant growing in fields, open woods, and road- 

 sides in most of the States east of the Mississippi, and to some extent 



