542 Materia MedIca. — Valeriana officinalis, part ii.

tive, particularly in the disc: with the seed-down sessile, rough,white, and shining': the receptacle is pitted, flat at first, butfinally convex: tlie leaves appear after the Bower, are radical,petiolate, erect, cordate, angled, and toothed; smooth, greenabove with reddish veins, but underneath white and woolly

The leaves are more frequently employed than the flowers,and should be gathered and dried when they are fully expanded,before they have attained their greatest magnitude.

(Vitalities. — The dried leaves are inodorous, and have arough mucilaginous taste. The mucus they contain is yieldedto water by coction, and evolves by the boiling a peculiarodour.

Medical properties and uses. — Tussilago is demulcent, andhas been regarded as expectorant from the earliest ages, havingbeen smoked through a reed in the days of Dioscorides, withthe view of relieving the chest from accumulated mucus incatarrh, asthma, and phthisis. It is still used as a demulcentin catarrhal and phthisical affections ; but very little relianceis placed on its powers. 1 Cullen thought he perceived goodeffects result from the use of the expressed juice of the recentleaves in scrophula; but his observations have not been gene-rally confirmed. '

The decoction of the leaves is the usual form of exhibitingtussilago. A handful of the leaves is boiled in Oij of water toOj; and the decoction after being strained is sweetened withsugar-candy or syrup. The dose is a teacupful.VALERIANA. Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 175.CI. 8- Ord. 1. Triandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Aggregate, Linn.

Dipsaceffi, Juss.G. 75. Corolla monopetalous, gibbous on one side of the base, su-perior. Seed one.* valerians, ivith a single doxvny seed.Species 6. V. officinalis. Officinal, or great Wild Valerian. Med.

Bat. 2d edit. 77. t. 32. Smith Flora. Brit. 38.Officinal. Valeriana radix, Lond. Dub. Valerianae offici-nalis radix, Edin. Wild Valerian root.

Syn. Valeriane (F.), Wilde Baldrianwurzel (G.). Wilde Valeriaan {Dutcli),Venclorot (Swed.) Valeriana Silvestre (/.), Valerian officinal (S.), Balder an (Ituss.).

This species of valerian is an indigenous perennial plant,flowering in June. There are two varieties of it; one growingin woods and marshy ground, the other .on high pastures andheaths; and the sensible qualities of the secondare consider-ably greater than those of the first. It has been often regardedas the <ps of Dioscorides; but Sibthorp has proved this opinion

1 A vile stimulant nostrum, consisting, according to Dr. Paris (Pliarmacologia),of equjl parts of balsam of Tolu, and the compound tincture of benzoin, with doublethe quantity of rectified spirit of imie, is sold under the name of essence if

tit foot, as a remedy for coughs

Mat. Med. ii. 160.