74 
DESCRIPTION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
color; stamens 8; style mostly 3-parted ; acliene smooth 
and shining. Wet places. One of the vilest weeds. FI. 
June. The herb, in a young state. 
ARISTOLQCHIACE2E. (Birthwort Family.) 
Asarum Canadense, L. Wild Ginger. Asarabacca. Stem- 
less perennial herb, with aromatic, pungent, creeping root- 
stocks bearing 2-3 scales, then 1-2 kidney-shaped leaves on 
long petioles, and short-peduncled flowers, close to the 
ground in the lower axil. Leaves soft- pubescent, membrana- 
ceous, more or less pointed, 4-5' wide when full grown, un- 
spotted. Calyx regular, 3-cleft, bell-shaped, wholly adnate 
to the ovary, the upper part of the short-pointed lobes wide- 
ly and abruptly spreading, brown-purple inside. Stamens 
12, slender style, with 6 radiating thick stigmas. Capsule 
fleshy, globular. In rich soil under shrubs, in shaded moist 
ground, along creek and river bottoms. The rootstock, col- 
lected in fall. 
Asarum Virginicum, L. Nearly glabrous; leaves round, heart- 
shaped, about 2' wide ; persistent, whitisli mottled ; calyx 
short, articulated within; calyx-tube inflated, bell-shaped,, 
somewhat contracted in the throat, its base adnate to the 
lower half of the ovary ; limb 3-cleff, short ; anthers sessile 
or nearly so, oblong-linear; styles 6, fleshy, diverging, 2- 
cleft, bearing a thick extrorse stigma below the cleft. Cum- 
berland Mountains, Lookout Mountains. FI. May-June. 
The rhizome. 
Asarum arifolium, Michx. Leaves halbert-shaped, 2-4' long; 
calyx oblong-tubular, with very short and blunt lobes; an- 
thers obtusely short-pointed. Mountains on the border of 
North Carolina. 
Asarum grandiflorum, Small. Perennial, stout, arising from a 
more or less branched rhizome, glabrous ; leaves varying 
from broadlv-ovate-cordate to orbicular-cordate, 5-9 cm. 
long, 4-8 cm. broad, obtuse or acutish, long-petioled, mottled 
or simply green, paler beneath ; flowers solitary, large, 1.5— 
