576  Structure  of  Asarum  Canadense,  L.   { ^cimb^f™* 
The  pistil  is  provided  with  a  short,  thick,  fleshy  style  that  is 
crowned  with  a  six-lobed  stigma.  The  ovary  is  six-celled,  with  an 
axillary  placentation  and  numerous  anatropous  ovules. 
The  fruit  is  an  irregularly  dehiscent,  many-seeded  capsule. 
The  seeds  are  carunculate  along  the  raphe  and  the  embryo  is 
minute,  imbedded  in  a  copious  albumen. 
The  rhizomes  with  the  rootlets  are  the  parts  employed  in  medi- 
cine.   The  rhizomes  are  from  5  to  6  mm.  in  diameter  when  fresh, 
Fig.  2. 
from  10  to  20  cm.  long,  whitish  exteriorly  and  interiorly,  but  when 
dried  they  average  considerably  thinner,  are  finely  wrinkled,  and 
are  brown  or  purplish-brown  externally,  and  whitish  or  brownish 
internally.  The  fracture  is  short,  the  zone  of  wood  rather  thin,  sur- 
rounding a  large  pith  and  is  composed  of  from  ten  to  fourteen  short, 
wedge-shaped  vasal  bundles  arranged  in  a  single  circle  and  rather 
widely  separated  from  each  other.  The  bundles  are  frequently  quite 
unequal  in  size  and  are  often  set  at  quite  unequal  distances  in  the 
