156 



WEEDS AJXD USEFUL PLANTS. 



large umbellulate panicles ; peduncles pubescent. InvoJucels of several short subulate 

 leaflets. Calyx with 5 small acute teeth. Petals greenish white. Styles united below ; 

 stigmas diverging or recurved. Berries .small, not torose, dark purple when mature. 



Rich woodlands : Canada to Georgia ; and in gardens, cultivated. Fl. July. Fr. Sep- 

 tember. 



Obs. This plant is native in. our rich woodlands ; but has been long 

 introduced into gardens, as a popular medicine. The root, and berries, 

 infused in alcohol, made a favorite tincture, in times past, for those 

 who indulged in the perilous habit of taking such stomachics. 



2. A, spino'sa, L. Shrub or low tree ; stem and petioles prickly ; 

 leaves bipinuately compound ; umbels in a very large much-branched 

 panicle. 



Prickly Aralia. Angelica Trefe. Hercules' Club. 



stem unbranched, prickly below, 10-20 and even 60 feet high. Leaves crowded at the 

 summit of the stem, 2-4 feet long ; leaflets ovate, acuminate, serrate, somewhat glaucous 

 below. Flowers white. 



Pennsylvania, South and West. June -August. 



Obs. This striking species is sometimes seen in cultivation ; at the 

 North it is a low tree, but in the Southern States it sometimes attains 

 the height of 40 or even 60 feet, its unbranched stems bearing the 

 crowded leaves at their summits, having a palm-like appearance. The 

 bark, root, and berries, have been used in medicine ; they are aromatic 

 and stimulant like those of the preceding species. * 



3. A. nudicau'lis, L. Stem very short, scarcely rising above ground ; 

 bearing a single long-stalked leaf, and a shorter naked scape, with 2-7 

 umbels. 



Naked-stem Aralia. Sarsaparilla. False Sarsaparilla. 



Root creeping, thickish and long, somewhat aromatic but mawkish. Stem scarcely 

 more than the crown of the root. Leaf on an erect petiole 6-12 inches long, 3-partcd at 

 summit : each division 2-5 inches in length, and bearing 5 odd-pinnate subsessile leafl-A.^. 

 Scape 4-8 inches high, divided at summit into 2-7 smoothish pediaicle-^, about 2 inches 

 long, each bearing a naked, many -flowered, globose umbel, an inch or an inch and a half 

 in diameter. BerHes torulose, purphsh black when mature. 



Obs. The root of this is sometimes used as a substitute for the Sarsa- 

 parilla of the shops, (a species of Smilax.) I believe both the original 

 and the substitute to be rather innocent medicines, — provided the dis- 

 ease be not serious ! 



§2. Ginseng. Flowers diaciously polygamous ; styles and cells of the 

 (red or reddish) fruit 2-3; stem herbaceous, low, simple, bearing at its 

 summit a whorl of 3 palmately 3-7 foliolate leaves (or perhaps rather a 

 single sessile twice-compound leaf) and a single umbel on a slender naked 

 peduncle. 



4. A, quinquefo'lia, Ch'ay. Root fusiform, often branched ; leaflets 

 mostly in fives, obovate, acuminate, unequally serrate, petiolulate ; pe- 

 duncle of the umbel rather shorter than the common petioles ; styles 2 ; 

 fruit succulent, 2-celled, 2-seeded. 



Five-leaved Panax. Ginseng. 



