MARRUBIUM VULGARE. THE WHITE HOREHOUND. 
Class XIV. DIDYNAMIA.— Order I. GYMNOSPERMIA. 
Natural Order, LABIATE. THE MINT TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) is a magnified flower cut open to show the position of the anthers; ( b ) the germen and style ; (<_•) a nut • 
(d) the calyx ; (e) the same, cut open; (/) a bractea. ' ’ 
White Horehound is common in most parts of Europe as well as in Britain, on waste grounds 
and among rubbish particularly in warm, dry situations, flowering copiously during the latter part of the 
summer. Willdenow enumerates fourteen species of Marrubium, and Mr. Don, in the “ Hortus Cantabrigi- 
ensis, ” notices thirteen that are cultivated in this country, most of which are European plants. Dr. Sibthorp 
has also added a beautiful new species, in the “ Flora Greeca, ” called velatinum. 
The root is perennial, woody, and fibrous, sending up several stems, branching from the bottom, about 
eighteen inches high, quadrangular, leafy, and clothed with fine down. The leaves are roundish or oblong, 
pointed, crenate, wrinkled, veined, hoary, and stand in opposite pairs, on thick broad footstalks. The flowers 
are white, and produced in dense convex whorls, at the axillae of the leaves; they are sessile, and furnished 
with setaceous, awned bracteas. The calyx is tubular, funnel shaped, furrowed, and divided at the margin 
into ten narrow teeth, recurved at the point, the five alternate ones being smallest. The corolla is mono- 
petalous, and consists of a cylindrical tube opening at the mouth into two lips, the upper of which is erect 
linear, and cloven, the under broader, reflexed, and divided into three deep lobes, with the lateral segments 
acute, and the middle one broad and slightly scolloped at the end. The filaments are, two long and two 
short, concealed within the tube of the corolla, and furnished with small oblong anthers. The germen is 4- 
lobed, surmounted by a thread-shaped style, with a cloven stigma. The nuts are four, at the bottom of the 
calyx. 
Qualities. — the leaves have a strong peculiar smell of an aromatic kind, which is completelv lost 
by keeping. To the taste they are bitter, penetrating, diffusive, and their flavour is durable in the mouth. 
“ The infusion reddens tincture of litmus, gives a deep olive-green precipitate with sulphate of iron, a brown 
with nitrate of silver, and a pale yellow with corrosive sublimate; acetate and superacetate of lead do not 
affect it. The active principles of horehound therefore appear to be a bitter extractive, volatile oil, and 
gallic acid.” 
Medical Properties and Uses. — This plant, which is still a very popular remedy with the poor, 
is tonic, and when taken in considerable doses is gently aperient. It was formerly much commended for 
asthma, jaundice, cachexy, and other obstructions. It has however given way to more active remedies, but 
although seldom employed by medical men, is said by Dr. Thompson to have been of decided use in cases 
of phthisis. A drachm of the leaves in powder, or an ounce of the expressed juice, are commonly ordered 
for a dose. The infusion is made with one ounce of the dried leaves, and a pint of boiling water, and given 
in the quantity of a wine-glassful twice or thrice a day.* 
Decoctum Marrubii compositum. 
Rj. Marrubii fol. exsice. gj. 
Glycyrrhizse rad. concisse. 
Lini usitatis sem. contus. sing, g ss. 
Aquee ferventis Ojss. Macera per horas 
quatuor, et cola. — Dosis gj. ad. gij. 
* The nostrum sold as Balsam of Horehound consists, according to Paris, of infusion of horehound and liquorice root, with double 
the portion of proof spirit or brandy ; to which is added opium, camphor, benzoin, squills, oil of aniseed and honey. 
