Perennial. — Flowers in July and August. 
Root tufted, somewhat creeping, with many long fibres. Ste?ns 
several, upright, from 2 to 4 feet high, branched, leafy, nearly 
cylindrical, rough with down, often of a brown or purplish colour, 
filled with pith. Leaves opposite, on short petioles ; leaflets 
mostly 3, sometimes 5, spear-shaped, sharply serrated on the sides, 
very entire towards the point, deep green, downy and rather rough 
to the touch ; sometimes the upper leaves are simple, but this sel- 
dom happens, except in seedling plants, the first year of flowering ; 
this is var. j3. of Sir J. E. Smith. Flowers in crowded, pale pur- 
plish, convex, corymbose tufts, terminating the stem and upper 
branches. Involucrum (see fig. 1.) of few, unequal, imbricated, 
strap-spear-shaped scales, somewhat membranaceous and purplish 
at the edges, slightly hairy. Florets few, about 5 or 6, of a pinkish 
or purplish-red colour, sometimes white. Germen besprinkled 
with minute shining globules. Styles (see fig. 2.) longer than the 
florets, and deeply cleft. Pappus (see figs. 3 & 4.) rough with 
minute teeth. Seed oblong, angular, nearly black. 
The plant has a slightly aromatic smell, and a bitter taste. A 
decoction of the root operates as a violent emetic and cathartic ; it 
is sometimes taken by the lower classes in jaundice and dropsy, but 
it is a rough medicine, and must be used with caution. An ounce 
of the root in decoction is a full dose. In smaller doses the Dutch 
peasants take it as an alterative, and antiscorbutic. Scarcely any 
animal, except the goat, will eat this plant. — I have lately been in- 
formed, that ropy or string-mouldy bread may be cured by strewing 
the plant on the shelves, &c. where the bread is kept. 
The variety above mentioned, with the upper leaves simple, is 
admirably figured in Mr. Curtis’s very elegant and beatpiful work, 
“ British Entomology,” vol.ix. t. 400. This variety appears to have 
been found near Lee, on the road to Eltham, first by Mr. Martyn, 
and afterwards by Dillenius ; and it has been observed since 
near Bungay in Suffolk, by Mr. Woodward. There is no speci- 
men of this preserved in the Dillenian Herbarium in the Oxford 
Garden ; but in the Slierardia.n Herbarium there is a specimen of 
a variety of the same species, in which the lower leaves are simple, 
and the upper ones compound or trifid. 
The species of Eupatorium are rather numerous; Mr. Loudon 
enumerates 54 in his Hortus Britannicus, as having been introduced 
into England. In Sprengel’s Systema Vegetabilium, published 
in 1826, 145 species are described, nearly the whole of which are 
natives of America; very few species inhabit Asia; scarcely any 
Africa ; and the only species at present found in Europe appears 
to be cannabinum. 
“ E. aromaticum, and E. odoratum, have very fragrant roots; and E. can- 
nabinum, perfoliatvm, satureicefohum, and some other species, are so hitter 
that they have been employed as febrifuges. E. Aya-pana has been much ex- 
tolled in Brazil as a diuretic and diaphoretic ; E perfuliatum for renal diseases ; 
and E ■ rolundifolium as useful in consumption ; but none have enjoyed so high, 
and apparently so undeserved a reputation, as the E. (now Mikania) Guaco, 
which the South Americans aflirm to be an antidote to llie bite of poisonous ser- 
pents; and which it was once hoped might have proved serviceable in that 
formidable disease, hydrophobia.” Sec Buiinut's Outl. of Bot. p.931. 
