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DESCRIPTION OP MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Heracleum lanatum, Miclix. Cow Parsnip. The stoutest of our 
native umbellifers. Its proper habitat are the northern 
prairies, but it finds a congenial home on the mountain-tops 
of the Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge, where it grows 8— 
10° high. It has large, ternately compound leaves, broad um- 
bels, deciduous involucre, and many-leaved involucels, white 
flowers, and obcordate petals, the outer ones commonly larger 
and 2-cleft. The whole plant is woolly. The stout rhizome 
is collected. 
Thaspium aureum, Nutt. Zizia aurea, Koch. Meadow-pars- 
nip. Perennial, 2-5° high, glabrous; root-leaves mostly 
cordate, serrate; stem-leaves simply ternate (rarely bi-ter- 
nate) ; leaflets ovate to lanceolate, round or tapering at base, 
serrate; flowers deep yellow; fruit globose-ovoid, about 2 " 
long, all the l’ibs equally winged. FI. June. Open wood- 
lands and hillsides. Frequent in the limestone regions. The 
root is collected. On the homeopathical drug-list under the 
synonym Zizia aurea. 
Cicuta maculata, L. Water Hemlock. Spotted Cowbane. 
Musquash Root. A smooth perennial, growing in swampy 
lands, copiously in West Tennessee, but also frequent in 
mountain bogs. It is a very poisonous plant, against whose 
violent narcotic effects we possess no satisfactory antidote. 
Stems stout, 2-5° high, streaked with purple; leaves 2-3 
pinnate, the lower on long petioles ; leaflets lanceolate to ob- 
long-lanceolate 1-5' long, acuminate, coarsely serrate, the 
veins passing to the notches; pedicels in the umbellets nu- 
merous, very unequal; fruit broadly ovate to oval, 1-lf" 
long. FI. August. Collect leaves in flowering season. 
Osmorrhiza longistylis, DC. Sweet Cicely. Glabrous or slight- 
ly pubescent perennial, 1-3° high from a thick aromatic root- 
stock, with ternately compound leaves, ovate, variously- 
toothed leaflets, few- leaved involucres and involucels, and 
white flowers in few-rayed and few-fruited umbels. Rich 
woodlands; frequent in the vicinity of Nashville and through 
Middle Tennessee. FI. May. Root collected in September. 
