SPIGELIA MARILANDICA -MARYLAND WORM-GRASS, OR CAROLINA PINK- 
Class Y. PENTANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, SPIGELIACE^. THE WORM-SEED TRIBE. 
Of this genus, which derives its name from Adrian Spigelius, a distinguished botanist, and Professor of 
Anatomy and Surgery at Padua, there are besides the marilandica but four species ; three natives of Brazils 
and Cayenne, the other of Jamaica. The present species is indigenous in all the southern states of America 
from Pennsylvania to Georgia and Louisiana ; but it will not bear the severity of a northern winter. It 
grows in rich dry soils, on the borders of woods, and flowers from May to July. It was introduced into this 
country in 1694. 
Spigelia marilandica is a low perennial plant, seldom more than eight or nine inches high in this 
country, but in its native soil sometimes attaining a height of nearly two feet. The root is horizontal, and 
consists of a great number of slender fibres, forming together a large bunch. When recent they are of a 
yellow colour, but become black on keeping. From the root proceed several erect, herbaceous, annual, 
smooth stems, four-sided, and of a reddish-purple colour. The leaves are opposite, sessile, ovato-acumi- 
nate, entire, and smooth. The stem is terminated by a spike of flowers, ranged on one side of the foot- 
stalk, and supported on short peduncles. Calyx short, cut into five acute segments ; corolla funnel-shaped, 
of a deep crimson externally, and pink within ; having the five segments of the border of a yellow colour, 
tinged with green ; the stamens are five, shorter than the corolla, supporting oblong sagittate anthers ; 
germen superior, ovate ; style the length of the corolla, terminated by a long fringed stigma. The capsule 
is double, two-celled, and contains many seeds. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Spigelia is a mucilaginous plant, with a mild and not 
very disagreeable taste. The infusion and decoction of the root and leaves afford a flocculent precipitate 
with alcohol. They are discoloured, but not precipitated by silicated potash. They have little sensibility 
to gelatin, although the tincture is made turbid by it. After the decoction was filtrated from the mucus, 
which had been coagulated by alcohol, it gave a precipitate with nitrate of mercury, but none with muriate 
of tin. Sulphate of iron caused a dark green precipitate from the decoction, and but little change in the 
tincture. No distinct evidence of resin presented itself. A substance, which may perhaps be considered a 
variety of extractive matter, appears to exist in this plant, as the tincture was affected in nearly the same 
manner by the salts of tin and mercury above mentioned, as the filtrated decoction. Water may be con- 
sidered an adequate solvent for the chief proximate principles of this plant. 
M. Feneuille has analyzed the leaves and roots of the Spigelia : he finds that 
The leaves yield. The roots yield, 
Chlorophylle, mixed with a fatty oil. Fatty oil, 
Volatile oil, 
Resin, in small quantity, 
Bitter substance. 
Saccharine mucus (jnucoso-sucrd . J 
Albumen, 
Gallic acid. 
Albumen, 
Nauseous bitter substance. 
Mucus, 
Gallic acid, 
Woody fibre, 
Malate of potass, of lime, &c. 
Woody fibre, 
Malate of potass and of lime, 
Silex, 
Oxide of iron. 
The bitter substance is said to be the active part, and to exist in greater abundance in the leaves, than 
in the root. It is of a brown colour, and taken internally produces vertigo, and a kind of intoxication. 
Medical Properties and Uses. — This plant w T as first used by the Cherokee Indians, as an an- 
thelmintic. Drs. Lining, Garden, and Chambers, first introduced it to notice, and their subsequent expe- 
rience tended to confirm its utility. The root possesses the greatest activity, and is given in doses of from 
grs. x. to 3j. two or three times a day. If it prove purgative it is said to be most effective ; and should it 
not, it must be conjoined with cathartics, which prevent the narcotic symptoms, such as stupor, headache, 
dilated pupils, flushings of the face, and stiffness of the eyelids, that so frequently follow its administration. 
It is said to be most useful in lumbrici; and it is to its acrid narcotic principle, that Dr. Good attributes 
the vermifuge powers which it possesses, in common with S. anthelmia, a native of Jamaica. Notwithstand- 
ing what has been advanced in its favour, we consider it an unnecessary appendage to our materia medica : 
for independently of its deleterious properties, its real anthelmintic ones are somewhat equivocal. As our 
