INULA HELENIUM. 
107 
a native of many parts of Europe and Japan, but whether our 
native species is the same noticed by Pliny and Dioscorides remains 
in doubt.* Inula is also mentioned by Horace, — 
Erucas virides, inulas ego primus amaras, 
Monstravi incoquere. — Sat. viii. v. 51. 
quum rapula plenus 
Atque acidas mavult inulas. — Sat. ii. v. 44. 
The ancients entertained a high opinion of this plant, and esteemed 
it a medicine of great efficacy in the cure of many diseases, which 
modern experience however does not confirm. Elecampane is a 
perennial plant, delighting in moist meadows and pastures ; it has 
been occasionally met with in several parts of the east, west, and 
northern counties, viz.— in Essex, Norfolk, Sussex, Bedfordshire, 
Cornwall, Surrey, &c. 
The roiot is large, thick, fusiform and branched, externally brown 
or grey, internally whitish ; the stalk grows upright, round, striated, 
branched, solid, and downy, and rises to the height of three or four 
feet; the leaves are ovate, serrated, crowded with reticular veins; 
mid-rib strong and fleshy ; upper surface of a deep green, under 
side downy ; the stem-leaves are sessile and clasping, the radical 
ones are very large, and stand upon footstalks; the flowers are 
compound, large, terminal, and of a deep yellow j the calyx is com- 
posed of several rows of strong imbricated ovate segments ; the 
corolla is composed of numerous florets, those occupying the disk 
are of a regular tubular form, divided at the brim into five equal 
segments, and are hermaphrodite, each containing five stamens ; the 
anthers united, so as to form a hollow cylinder (and furnished with 
bristles at their base) ; germen oblong, style slender, stigma bifid, 
the florets of the radius are female, at the lower part tubular, the 
upper ligulated, and cut into three narrow pointed segments; the 
style cloven, supporting an obtuse stigma ; germen oblong ; seeds 
solitary, striated, quadrangular, and furnished with a simple down; 
the receptacle flat and reticulated. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties. The leaves, and 
more particularly the root, in their recent state, possess a somewhat 
strong, rancid, pungent, and glutinous taste, succeeded by an aro- 
matic bitterness; the odour of the roots when recent is both foetid 
and aromatic ; these qualities are improved by drying, the former 
* It is probable that elecampane is the Helenium foliis Verbasci of Dioscorides. 
Vide lib. i. chap, 27. 
