THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
OCTOBER,  1881. 
THE  SENEGA  OF  COMMERCE. 
By  J.  U.  AND  C.  G.  Lloyd. 
Read  at  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  before  the  American  Pliarmaceutical  Associa- 
tion and  communicated  by  the  authors. 
The  species  of  Polygala  that  should  yield  senega^  and  which  is  offi- 
cinal ^  is  Polygala  senega,  Lin.  The  localities  referred  to  by  the 
authors  of  our  dispensatories  and  other  writers  as  furnishing  the  sen- 
ega of  commerce  are  the  Southern  and  Western  States.  Such  States 
of  the  South  and  West  as  furnish  senega  for  the  market,  and  which 
fact  is  personally  known  to  us,  are  Kentucky,  Virginia,  Tennessee, 
North  Carolina,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois. 
Doubtless  small  amounts  of  senega  are  also  derived  from  the  north- 
ern portions  of  other  Southern  States  and  from  portions  of  certain 
Northern  and  Eastern  States  that  border  the  States  we  have  named. 
In  fact  the  typical  species  (Polygala  senega,  Lin.)  is  most  common  in 
the  Eastern  States,  and  the  root  of  this  agrees  in  appearance  and  char- 
acteristics with  senega  of  the  South  and  West.    It  has  been  uniformly 
the  case  that  all  lots  of  senega  examined  by  ourselves,  and  which 
came  direct  from  diggers  or  first  hands  from  the  States  mentioned, 
agree  with  the  accepted  descriptions.    In  connection  with  the  history 
of  this  drug,  we  have  made  it  an  object  during  the  past  few  years  to 
consult  brokers  and  dealers  in  indigenous  drugs  throughout  the  portions 
of  our  country  that  we  have  named.     Their  reports  confirm,  without 
exception,  the  above,  such  senega  being  known  by  drug  brokers  as 
"  Southern  senega.^^    In  connection  with  this  part  of  our  subject,  we 
beg  leave  to  call  attention  to  the  specimen  of  Polygala  senega,  var. 
latifolia,  Lin.,  of  our  herbarium  which  was  collected  in  Kentucky 
by  ourselves  and  about  twenty-five  miles  south  of  Cincinnati.  This 
we  know  to  yield  a  root  identical  with  the  officinal  and  about  the  same 
in  size  and  is  Southern  senega.    Senega  from  all  tlie  senega-producing 
States  that  we  have  named  agrees  in  appearance,  and  as  the  bulk  of  it 
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