46 
DESCRIPTION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
as a salad. Since more than one hundred years the so-called 
root has been used as a substitute for, or rather an adultera- 
tion of coffee, either by itself or as an admixture to the 
roasted coffee bean. It need hardly be said that chicory is 
entirely destitute of those properties which render coffee an 
agreeable and nutritive beverage. Its medicinal qualities 
are closely allied to those of dandelion. It is a common 
weed at roadsides and in waste places in the Atlantic States, 
but yet rare here. FI. June-July. The root is used for 
an extract. 
Lactuca Canadensis, L. Wild Lettuce. Succulent, leafy-stem- 
med annual or biennial herb, with panicled heads. Tall, 
4-9° high, smooth or nearly so, glaucous; leaves 6-12' long, 
pale beneath, mostly sinuate-pinnatifid, caulines sagittate, 
clasping, the upper lanceolate and entire. Heads several to 
many-flowered. Involucre cylindrical or in fruit conical; 
scales imbricated in 2 or more sets of unequal lengths. 
Achenes very flat, orbicular to oblong, 1-nerved on each 
face, with a filiform beak. Very abundant in waste grounds 
or new clearings. The leaves and the whole plant are used. 
Lactucarium, an extract similar to opium, is prepared from it. 
LOBELIACEiE. (Lobelia Family.) 
Lobelia cardinalis, L. Cardinal- flower. A tall smoothish pe- 
rennial, 2-3° high. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, slightly 
toothed ; racemes elongated, rather 1-sided, flowers axillary, 
deep red ; the pedicels much shorter than the leaf-like bracts. 
Calyx 5-cleft, with a short tube. Corolla with a straight tube, 
split down on the (apparently) upper side, somewhat 2-lipped; 
the upper lip of 2 rather erect lobes, the lower lip spreading 
and 3-cleft. Two of the anthers bearded at the top. Pod 2- 
celled, many seeded, opening at the top. A very showy plant, 
deserving a place in the flower-gardeD. It is rarely ever used, 
but it appears among Ely Lilly’s fluid extracts. Very fre- 
quent in low, damp or swampy places. FI. in fall. The flower- 
ing herb is to be collected. 
