118 
ON ARISTOLOCHIA. 
ft 
ART. XVI.— OBSERVATIONS ON TWO OF THE SPECIES OF 
ARISTOLOCHIA WHICH AFFORD THE SERPENTARIA OF 
COMMERCE. 
The article of the Materia Medica, denominated Serpenta- 
ria, although defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia to 
be the root of A. serpentaria, is indiscriminatelycollected from 
several species. Three species are enumerated as contribut- 
ing the article found in the market, viz. : A. serpentaria, A. 
tomentosa, and A. hastata. To these we may add two 
more species, one of which certainly, and the other probably, 
has been met with in commerce. These species are the A. 
reticulata, of Nuttall, and the A. hirsuta, of Muhlenberg, 
both as yet undescribed, although discriminated, and thus 
named by these botanists. There has lately appeared in this 
market, a Serpentaria which is certainly derived from the 
former species, being accompanied by stems, leaves, flowers, 
and fruit, presenting the well marked characters of this plant, 
as compared with the specimen contained in the Herbarium of 
the Acadamy of Natural Sciences, of this city, and marked 
in the hand writing of Mr. Nuttall, "A. reticulata, Red 
river." The locality in which this root was collected is uncer- 
tain, all the information on this point being that it was transmit- 
ted from Virginia, whether collected in that state or not be- 
ing unknown. The A. reticulata is characterized by a root 
resembling Serpentaria, which send off numerous short stems, 
most usually simple, but occasionally branching near the 
root. These are slender, round, flexuose, jointed, and slight- 
ly villous in old, from numerous scattered, yellowish-white 
hairs, but in young specimens amounting to a dense pubes- 
cence. The leaves are large,' subsessile, varying from round 
to oblong cordate, obtuse, reticulate, with very prominent 
veins, and villose on both surfaces, more especially on the 
veins, and very short petioles. The peduncles, several in 
