DESCRIPTION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
25 
jointed, prostrate and spreading; joints broadly obovate 
2-4' long'; leaves minute 2-2\" long, ovate-subulate, gen- 
erally appressed; bristles short, greenish-yellow, rarely with 
a few small spines; flowers solitary, sessile, pale yellow 
about 2' broad, with about 8 petals; fruit 1' long. Only 
recently found near Nashville, where the closely related 
Opuntia Rafinesquii, Engelm., is abundant. Used only in 
homeopathy. 
UMBELLIFERiE. (Parsley Family.) 
Sanicula Marilandica, L. and 
var. Canadensis, Torr. Sanicle. Black Snake-root- 
Perennial, rather tall glabrous herb with few palmately- 
lobed or parted leaves, those from the root long-petioled. 
Calyx-teeth persistent. Fruit globular, the carpels not sep- 
arating spontaneously, ribless, thickly clothed with hooked 
prickles, each with 5 oil-tubes. In Marilandica the styles 
are longer than the prickles, in var. Canadensis the styles are 
shorter. Both varieties are common and abundant in moist 
woodlands everywhere. FI. June. Root collected in fall or 
summer. 
Eryngium yuccsefolium, Michx. Rattlesnake’s Master. A 
stout perennial 2-3° high, with spiny leaves and hemispherical 
flower heads of sessile flowers, the base of which is sur- 
rounded with ovate-lanceolate, mostly entire cuspidate- tipped 
bracts, shorter than the head and similar bractlets. Plant 
stiff and rigid. Distributed over the State, growing in dry 
and damp soils. The very stout rhizome is collected in fall. 
Daucus Carota, L. Carrot. Bristly biennial, with pinnately 
decompound leaves, foliacious and cleft involucral bracts, 
and white flowers in compound umbels, which become 
strongly concave. Fruit oblong flattened dorsally ; carpel 
with 5 slender bristly primary ribs and 4 winged ones, each 
bearing a single row of barbed prickles. Naturalized from 
Europe, and becoming an undesirable nuisance. Horses and 
cattle don’t touch it. The herb is officinal. 
