DESCRIPTION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
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Hydrocotyle ranunculoides, L. Low, smooth, marsh or aquatic 
perennial, with slender creeping or floating stems; leaves 
rather .thick, round-reniform, 3-7-cleft, the lobes crenate. 
Calyx teeth obsolete. Fruit 1-1J" broad, ribs rather 
obscure ; peduncles 1-3' long, reflexed in fruit ; capitate 
umbel 5-10-flowered. Prefers shallow streams of running 
water. Being an unsightly object it is easily overlooked. 
Vicinity of Nashville, Tullahoma creek, etc. In homeo- 
pathic practice. 
ARALIACEiE. (Ginseng Family.) 
Aralia spinosa, L. Angelica-tree. Hercules’ Club. Dwarf 
Elder. A shrub or slender, low tree; the stout stems or 
stalks prickly ; leaves very large, decompound ; leaflets ovate, 
pointed, serrate, pale beneath. Flowers in numerous um- 
bels, united to a large, compound panicle. Ovary 2-5-celled, 
ripening into a berry-like drupe with as many seeds as cells. 
Common over the entire State, but most frequent in the cedar- 
glades of Middle Tennessee. FI. June-July. The bark 
is collected. 
ARALIACEAE. (Ginseng Family.) 
Aralia racemosa, L. Spikenard. Herbaceous; stem widely 
branched ; leaves large, decompound ; leaflets heart-ovate, 
pointed, doubly serrate, slightly downy ; umbels racemous. 
The large roots spicy-aromatic tasting. Highlands of Mid- 
dle Tennessee, Cumberland Mountains. Abundant twelve 
miles from Nashville, on the Charlotte pike. The rhizome, 
collected in autumn. 
Aralia hispida, Vent. Bristly Sarsaparilla. Wild Elder. 
Stem 1-2° high, bristly, leafy, terminating in a peduncle 
bearing 2-7 corymbed umbels; leaves twice pinnate ; leaf- 
lets oblong-ovate, acute, cut-serrate. Higher mountains of 
East Tennessee. Abundant in the Frog Mountains, Polk 
County. FI. June. Rhizome, collected in fall. 
Aralia nudicaulis, L. Wild Sarsaparilla. Stem scarcely 
