194 
Pharmacognostical  Notes. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Phabm. 
t    May  1,  1872. 
Ind.  (gathered  among  a  range  of  hills  known  as  '  the  Knobs'),  but 
such  is  not  now  the  case,  and  the  drugs  gathered  in  its  neighborhood 
find  their  markets  no  farther  than  our  city  (Louisville,  Ky.)"  Appa- 
rently the  same  wasteful  practice,  satisfied  with  the  results  of  to-day, 
without  looking  to  the  demands  of  the  morrow,  prevails  among  the 
drug  gatherers  of  this  country  as  in  South  and  Central  America,  and 
it  is  not  improbable  that  the  time  may  not  be  far  distant  when  a  few  of 
the  leading  drugs  may  require  to  be  cultivated  to  insure  a  full  and 
continuous  supply  of  the  market. 
Although  many  of  our  indigenous  plants  have  been  used  in  domes- 
tic and  in  regular  practice,  the  use  of  some  seems  to  be  confined  alto- 
gether to  certain  localities,  beyond  which  their  medicinal  properties 
are  unknown  or  not  appreciated.  It  would  be  very  interesting  to 
obtain  reliable  information  concerning  them. 
The  following  notes  are  intended  to  direct  attention  to  a  few  articles 
of  our  indigenous  materia  medica,  nearly  all  of  which  deserve  to  be 
further  investigated : 
Cypripedium. — The  secondary  list  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the 
United  States  directs  the  rhizome  and  rootlets  of  Cypripedium  pubes- 
cens,  Willdenow.  Under  the  common  names  of  ladies'  slipper,  and 
American  valerian,  two  entirely  distinct  rhizomes,  with  the  rootlets 
attached,  are  met  with  in  commerce,  both  of  monocotyledonous  origin. 
The  only  species  of  this  genus  which  I  have  met  with  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Philadelphia  is  Cypripedium  acaule,  Aiton,  the  radical  por- 
tion of  which  has  not  be^n  observed  by  me  among  the  commercial 
ladies'  slipper  root.  The  officinal  species  appears  to  grow  as  far  south 
as  Georgia,  and  west  to  Wisconsin.  Gray*  states  that  it  is  common 
northward  and  westward,  and  southward  in  the  Alleghanies.  Dr. 
Porcherf  says  it  occurs  near  Newborn.  Dr.  DarlingtonJ  mentions, 
twenty  years  ago,  that  it  was  formerly  frequent  in  Chester  County, 
Pa.,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  plant  is  now  of  rarer  occurrence  yet. 
Another  species,  which,  like  the  one  mentioned,  bears  flowers  with 
yellow  lips,  is  Cypripedium  parviflorum,  Salisbury,  which  appears  to 
be  most  common  west ;  though  usually  smaller  than  the  former,  it 
attains  the  height  of  1  to  2  feet,  the  two  species  appearing  to  pass 
into  each  other  (Gray).    Cypripedium  candidum,  Muhlenberg,  and 
*  Manual  of  the  Botany  of  the  Northern  United  States, 
t  Resources  of  the  Southern  Fields  and  Forests,  p.  603. 
t  Flora  Cestriea,  3d  edition,  1853,  p.  316. 
