ROOTS AND RHIZOMES. 
149 
Jamaica, they are less aromatic and are not recognized 
by the pharmacopoeias. 
Description. — Horizontal, latterly compressed, ir- 
regularly branched pieces, 4 to 10 cm. long, 4 to 20 
mm. broad, 5 to 10 mm. thick ; exernally light brown, 
longitudinally wrinkled, with somewhat elliptical de- 
pressed stem -scars, with few fibers of fibrovascular 
tissue or adhering fragments of periderm ; fracture 
mealy and with short projecting fibrovascular bundles; 
internally, cortex light brown, 01 to 0'4 mm. thick ; 
central cylinder with numerous circular groups of 
fibrovascular tissue and yellowish secretion cells; odor 
strongly aromatic ; taste pungent. 
Constituents. — Volatile oil, possessing the aromatic 
odor of the drug, about 2 per cent. ; a viscid principle 
gingerol, which has the pungent taste of the drug; 
resin ; starch 20 per cent. 
CONVALLARIA (Lily-of-the- Valley). 
The dried rhizome and roots of Convallaria majalis 
(Fam. Liliacese), a perennial herb indigenous to Eu- 
rope, Asia and the higher mountains of Virginia, 
North Carolina and South Carolina. The rhizome 
and roots should be collected late in summer and care- 
fully dried. The leaves and flowers have also been 
used in medicine. 
Description. — Rhizome horizontal, cylindrical, and 
sometimes branched, jointed in pieces from 3 to 17 cm. 
long, internodes 10 to 50 ram. long, 1 to 3 mm. in 
diameter, nodes with a circular scar, not much thick- 
ened; externally light or dark brown, longitudinally 
wrinkled, somewhat annulate from scars of bud-scales, 
mostly smooth between the nodes, upper surface of 
nodes marked by stem-scars, side and under surface with 
root-scars, or usually with three to five roots, fracture 
