Perennial. — Flowers in June and July. 
Root large, whitish, tuberous, beset with roundish knobs, which 
are said to disappear as the plant attains maturity. Stem 2 or 3 feet 
hiejh, upright, nearly simple, leafy, sharply 4-angled, smooth and 
glossy, often of a reddish-brown colour, the angles sometimes edged 
with a membranous line, but not winged. Leaves opposite, on 
shortish petioles, imperfectly heart-shaped, pointed, sharply and 
unequally serrated, the base cut away, as it were, to the two small 
lateral ribs ; brownish green above, paler beneath. Flowers small, a 
little drooping, in a compound, terminal panicle, accompanied by 
spear-shaped, taper-pointed bracteas. Calyx small, with’ 5 blunt 
teeth, which are membranous at the margin. Corolla of a dull 
green, roundish-egg-shaped ; the two upper segments of a dusky 
purple, with a small, kidney-shaped scale, or sterile stamen, at their 
base within; the two lateral segments expanding; the lower one 
rolled back. Capsule egg-shaped. 
This species has the name Figwort, and formerly Kernelwort, 
from its knotted roots, and Brownwort from the brown tinge of its 
leaves. In medicine the plant is hardly known in modern practice, 
but the rank smell, like Elder, and bitter taste of the leaves, seem 
to indicate active properties. The leaves and roots are said to be 
purgative and emetic. Gerarde says, “ divers do rashly teach, 
that if it be hanged about the necke, or else carried about one, it 
keepeth a man in health.” — Swine that have the scab are cured by 
washing them with a decoction of the leaves. Wasps resort greatly 
to the flowers in search of the honey-like liquor at the base of the 
tube of the corolla. Goats eat the plant ; but cows, horses, sheep, 
and swine, refuse it. 
Ray informs us, in the 2nd edition of his Synopsis, p. 161 , that 
a variety of S. nodosa, with the stem, leaves, and flowers all green, 
was found by Bobart near Cumnor, Berks, previous to 1696 ; and 
remarks, “ Common Figwort is called Brownwort from its remark- 
able brown colour. This hath nothing of Brownness in it.” This 
green variety was found in the same locality in 1830, by His 
Grace the present Archbishop of Dublin, by whom it was in- 
troduced into the Oxford Botanic Garden, where it is still growing, 
and remains unchanged by cultivation. 
Professor Burnett, in his very useful work, entitled Outlines of 
Botany, p. 981, says, the Scrophulariee received their generic name 
from tbe resemblance the tumid roots of some of the species bear 
to scrofulous swellings, and to which they were applied as poultices, 
the doctrine of signatures leading to the belief that nature thus in- 
dicated their virtues and the purposes to which they should be 
applied. Sir J. E. Smith, however, seems to have been of a 
different opinion, for he says, [Engl. FI. v. iii. p. 138.) Scrophularia 
nodosa having been taken for the Galeopsis of Dioscorides, which 
is really S. peregrina, and though celebrated for its use in scrofulous 
disorders, has no tuberous root, it may not be correct to suppose 
this sort of root first recommended our plant to medical use, or was 
the origin of the generic name. If, however, such were the case, it 
would not be without example in the history of medicine.. 
