RUTA GRAVEOLENS. -COMMON RUE. 
Class X. DECANDRIA. — Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, RUT ACE M. THE RUE TRIBE. 
Rue is a hardy evergreen under-shrub, a native of the south of Europe, and has been cultivated in our 
gardens from time immemorial, where it flowers from June to September. Before the Reformation, 
it was called the Herb of Grace ; from the circumstances of small bunches of it having been used 
by the priests 'for sprinkling of holy water among the people. The stem is bushy, round, and branched, 
rising to the height of two or three feet, woody at the lower part, and covered with a rough, 
striated, grey bark ; but the upper branches are smooth, and of a yellowish green colour. The leaves are 
alternate, stalked, doubly pinnate, slightly tomentose, smooth, dotted, and of a deep bluish glaucous hue ; 
the leaflets obovate, sessile, decurrent, very obscurely crenate, or entire, and tapering at the base. The 
flowers are of a pale greenish-yellow colour, copious, and produced in terminal corymbose panicles, the 
terminal ones only having the full number of each of the parts of fructification, while the rest are octan- 
drous, and have the calyx 4-parted, and a 4-petaled corolla. The petals are nearly ovate, concave, spread- 
ing, fringed at the extremity, and attached by narrow claws. The stamens are ten, awl-shaped, the length 
of the corolla, bearing small yellow anthers. The germen is oval, punctured, with crucial furrows, and sur- 
mounted by a short awl-shaped style and simple stigma. The capsule is gibbous, 5-lobed, bursting elasti- 
cally at the summit of each lobe, and containing numerous rough, angular, blackish seeds. The irritability 
of the stamens in the rue is a physiological phenomenon of interest. 
Rue is easily propagated by slips or cuttings in the spring ; and like rosemary, lavender, hyssop, and 
other similar aromatics, it thrives best in poor dry soils. 
Qualities. — Every part of the plant has a strong peculiar odour, and a pungent, bitterish, nauseous 
taste. The bruised leaves are extremely acrid, and excoriate the mouth and nostrils, if incautiously ap- 
plied, as they often are, to counteract bad smells. Their specific virtues reside chiefly in an essential oil, 
which they yield on distillation with water. 
Medical Uses. — Rue is a moderately active stimulant, and antispasmodic, and was much extolled 
by the ancients. Hippocrates commends it as a resolvent and diuretic, and attributes to it the power of 
resisting contagion and poisons. An infusion of the leaves was formerly in much repute, as an anthel- 
mintic, and if taken in sufficient quantity it certainly proves noxious to intestinal worms. Boerhaave, 
speaking of rue, observes, that the greatest commendations he can bestow upon it fall short of its merits. 
“ What medicine/’ says he, “ can be more efficacious for promoting perspiration, for the cure of hysteric 
passion, and of epilepsies and for expelling poison ?” Externally it has been employed in fomentations to 
gangrenous ulcers ; but it possesses no superiority over chamomile or wormwood for these purposes, and it 
is but seldom employed. 
Dose. — The dose of the powdered leaves is from 9i to 9ij. 
Rue was anciently also named herb grace, or herb of grace, and it is to this day called are grace in 
Sussex, in allusion doubtless to Ave Maria gratia plena ; and it is remarkable that Mary, in Hebrew, sig- 
nifies bitter. Warburton says, that rue had its name herb of grace from its having been used in exorcisms. 
When Ophelia, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, says to the Queen, ,£ There’s rue for you and here’s some for me ; 
we may call it herb of grace o ‘ Sundays :’ the fair moralist has no reference to this plant being used in ex- 
orcisms, performed in churches on Sundays ; but means only, that the Queen may with peculiar propriety 
on Sundays, when she solicits pardon for that crime which she has so much occasion to rue and repent of, 
call her rue herb of grace. It was, indeed, the common name for rue in Shakespeare’s time; and Greene, 
in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, has this passage : “ some of them smiled and said rue was called herbe- 
