8 
ON OIL OF FIREWEED. 
ART II.— ON OIL OF FIREWEED. 
By Augustine Duhamel. 
Read at the Pharmaceutical Meeting, Feb. 5th, 1844. 
An oil distilled in one of the Western States, from the 
common fire weed plant, where it is known and much used, 
having been forwarded to a gentleman of this city as a 
remedy to cure his piles, has been handed to us for exami- 
nation. A specimen is offered, for exhibition, to the College. 
In addition to a few observations upon some of its proper- 
ties, the result of a cursory examination, a description of 
the plant, which is not generally known, taken from 
Torrey's Botanical Work, together with a dried specimen 
of the plant, is likewise offered. 
Erecthites proealta. E. hieracifolia. — Raf. Formerly 
the Senecio hieracifolius of Linnaeus. — Somewhat hairy 
or glabrous ; stem simple or paniculate above ; striate-sul- 
cate ; leaves lanceolate-oblong, acute, unequally and sharp- 
ly toothed or incised, tapering to the base, sessile ; the 
upper often saggittate-auriculate Fat the base, and partly 
clasping ; involucre glabrous, subtended by small subulate- 
linear calyculate bracteoles ; pappus copious and very 
white; corolla, 10-nerved; root, annual. 
Habitat. Moist, waste places, Canada, and throughout 
the U. States \ particularly abundant in recent clearings, 
especially in and around the spots where brushwood has 
been burned, whence the popular name of Jireweed. It is 
a coarse weed, growing from 1 to 5 feet high, with the 
aspect of a Sonchus. It flowers from July to August. 
The oil of fireweed, as presented, is in the form of a 
transparent greenish yellow colored fluid, with a strong 
penetrating herbaceous odor, and a feeble peculiar taste, 
