DESCRIPTION OP MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
75 
4 cm. long, tubular-campauulate, limb not contracted but 
divided into three large, unequal spreading lobes, which are 
mottled with violet on the inside ; peduncle 2-2.5 cm. long ; 
anthers equally 4-ribbed, seed oblique-ovoid, acute, 3.5 mm. 
long, smooth. (Memoirs of Torry Bot. Club, vol. iv., No. 2, 
1894.) Chilhowee and Big Frog Mountains, East Tennessee. 
A. Canadense, L., is the species originally used by Ameri- 
can pharmacists, but all four species here enumerated possess 
the same acrid, pungent taste and aromatic scent, and would 
scarcely any way differ therapeutically. The original classi- 
cal plant is Asarum Europseum, L ., which was known and 
described by Dioscorides. It was much used as an emetic 
and sternutatory, until superceded by the root of Ceptuelis 
Ipecacuanha, a Brazilian Rubiacea. The former is apt to 
act in small emetic doses, also as a cathartic, while the latter 
doe3 so only iu larger doses, while it acts as an astringent 
in smaller ones, to the intestinal tract. 
Aristolochia Serpentaria, L. Virginia Snake-Root. A low,, 
twining perennial, stems 8—12' high, branched at base, pu- 
bescent; leaves ovate or oblong from a heart-shaped base 
or halbert-form, mostly acute or pointed. Flowers all next 
the root, short-peduncled. Calyx bent like the letter S, en- 
larged at the two ends, the small limb obtusely 3-lobed. 
Stamens 6, anthers contiguous in pairs, adnate to the short 
and fleshy 3-6 lobed or angled style. Capsule naked, sep- 
ticidally 6-valved. Seeds very flat. The fibrous aromatic 
root is collected in autumn. FI. May- June. In rich leaf- 
mould, in crevices of rocks, especially in the limestone re- 
gions of Middle Tennessee ; not rare. 
LAURACEiE. (Laurel Family.) 
Sassafras officinale, Nees. Sassafras. Tree 20-100° high. The 
latter size it attains in the rich alluviums of the Tennessee,. 
Hiwassee and Mississippi Rivers, by a diameter of trunk of 
3-4°. The leaves are ovate, entire and sometimes 3-lobed, 
glabrous; twigs yellowish-green. Flowers dioecious with a 
