Part 4

Wafer-ash bark possesses tonic properties, and is employed in fevers. It is also said to be useful as an anthelmintic.

BLACK ALDER.

_Ilex verticillata_ (L.) A. Gray.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.—Black alder (_Ilex verticillata_), fruits.]

_Synonym._—_Prinos verticillata_ L.

_Other common names._—Prinos, winterberry, common winterberry, Virginia winterberry, false alder, white alder, feverbush.

_Habitat and range._—The black alder is native in swamps, moist woods, and along banks of streams, in Canada and the eastern United States, and westward to Wisconsin and Missouri.

_Description of shrub._—The fruits of the black alder are a familiar sight in the Christmas markets, the bare branches with the persistent, shining, bright red berries being much used for decorative purposes during the holiday season. Black alder is a shrub usually from 6 to 8 feet high (sometimes 25 feet), with grayish bark and smooth twigs. The leaves are oval or oblong lanceolate, pointed at the apex, about 2 to 3 inches long, and about an inch in width. They are rather thick and leathery in texture, dark green and smoothish on the upper surface, hairy on the lower surface, especially along the veins, and sharply toothed. In autumn the leaves turn black.

The flowers, which appear from about May to July, are small and white, the male clusters consisting of 2 to 10 flowers, and the female of only 1 to 3. The fruits are bright red and shining, about the size of a pea, clustered around the stem, and each containing six seeds (fig. 29). Black alder belongs to the holly family (Aquifoliaceæ).

_Description of bark._—The bark, which was official in the United States Pharmacopœia from 1820 to 1890, occurs in commerce in somewhat quilled strips or pieces of an ashy brown color outside, with whitish patches and round black spots and lines. The inner surface is greenish or yellowish, and marked with short lines. The fracture is short, showing a greenish tinge. It has a faint, peculiar odor and a bitter, astringent taste.

_Collection, prices, and uses._—Black alder bark is collected in autumn. The amount paid to collectors ranges from 2 to about 5 cents a pound.

It is used in medicine as a tonic and astringent. The berries are employed for similar purposes as the bark.

WAHOO.

_Euonymus atropurpureus_ Jacq.

_Pharmacopœial name._—Euonymus.

[Illustration: FIG. 30.—Wahoo (_Euonymus atropurpureus_), leaves and fruits.]

_Other common names._—Burning-bush, spindle-tree, Indian arrowwood, bursting-heart, strawberry-tree, strawberry-bush, American spindle-tree, bitter ash, pegwood.

_Habitat and range._—Wahoo is found in woods and thickets from Ontario and the eastern United States west to Montana.

_Description of shrub._—This native shrub or small tree is from 6 to 25 feet in height, more often reaching only 10 feet, with an ashy gray bark, twigs somewhat 4 angled, and leaves from 1-1/2 to 5 inches in length and about half as wide, oval-oblong or elliptical, and long pointed at the apex (fig. 30). They are rather thin in texture, with a prominent midrib, more hairy on the lower surface than above, and the margins round toothed. The 4-petaled purple flowers are produced in June, in loose, slender-stemmed clusters of from 5 to 15 flowers each, and have 4 wavy, obovate petals. The pale purple fruits are rather odd looking, consisting of 4 deeply cleft, flattened lobes, smooth, each cell containing 1 or 2 seeds (fig. 30). These capsules open after they ripen, about October, and disclose the seed surrounded by a red aril (false coat enveloping the seed), the bush at this time presenting a very bright and showy appearance.

The name “wahoo” is applied indiscriminately to _Euonymus atropurpureus_ and _E. americanus_—the latter a low or trailing bush having crimson capsules, to which the appellation “burning-bush” more properly belongs. Both species, which are members of the staff-tree family (Celastraceæ), are used in medicine, although _E. atropurpureus_ alone is recognized in the United States Pharmacopœia.

_Description of bark._—The dried bark of the root of wahoo is official in the United States Pharmacopœia. It is in quilled pieces of irregular size. The outside of the bark is furrowed and ridged, of an ashy or light brownish gray color, showing a few dark patches of soft cork. The inner surface is smooth and whitish or somewhat pale brownish. The fracture is short, whitish, and shows fine silky fibers. There is a distinct odor, and the taste is sweetish, bitter, and somewhat acrid.

_Collection, prices, and uses._—Although the bark from the stem is also sometimes gathered, it is the root bark only which is recognized as official.

The root bark at present brings from 9 to 20 cents a pound. It has tonic, diuretic, laxative, and antiperiodic properties; it acts on the liver, increasing the flow of bile, and is also employed in intermittent fevers and in dyspepsia.

FALSE BITTERSWEET.

_Celastrus scandens_ L.

_Other common names._—Climbing bittersweet, shrubby bittersweet, fevertwig, fever-twitch, staff-tree, climbing staff-tree, staff-vine, waxwork, Roxbury waxwork, yellowroot, climbing orange-root, Jacob’s-ladder.

_Habitat and range._—This woody vine or climbing shrub is found in woods and thickets, growing in rich damp soil, from Ontario to Manitoba, south to North Carolina and New Mexico.

[Illustration: FIG. 31.—False bittersweet (_Celastrus scandens_), leaves, flowers, and fruits.]

_Description of plant._—False bittersweet is a most attractive plant in the fall, with its brilliant orange-yellow and scarlet seed capsules adding a vivid dash of color to the fall and winter landscape, remaining on the vine well into the cold season.

It is an indigenous woody and shrubby climber, growing over adjacent trees or near-by fences. The leaves are thin and smooth, oval, 2 to 4 inches long, and about half as wide, pointed at the apex, and with a pointed or rounded base, the margins furnished with fine, rounded teeth. The small, greenish white or greenish yellow flowers are produced in June, in short terminal clusters, and the fruit is in the form of a roundish, 3-celled, orange-colored capsule, which opens in autumn, disclosing the scarlet-covered seed, making a very showy appearance. This covering is known as an “aril.” (Fig. 31.)

False bittersweet and true bittersweet, on account of the similarity of the common names, are often confused, but the plants do not resemble each other at all, belonging to entirely different families and possessing different medicinal properties. False bittersweet belongs to the staff-tree family (Celastraceæ), while the true bittersweet is a member of the nightshade family (Solanaceæ).

_Description of bark._—The bark of both plant and root is employed, but especially that of the root. The latter is rather smooth, in small quilled pieces, the outer surface covered with a thin, papery layer of dark orange-brown and the inner surface white and finely grooved. The bark from the stem has a brown-gray color. There is practically no odor, and the taste is bitter, becoming sweet, then somewhat acrid and rather sickening.

_Prices and uses._—The price paid to collectors varies from 5 to 10 cents a pound.

The bark of false bittersweet possesses alterative, emetic, diaphoretic, and diuretic properties, and some narcotic action is also attributed to it.

HORSE-CHESTNUT.

_Aesculus hippocastanum_ L.

_Other common names._—Hippocastanum, bongay, konker-tree.

[Illustration: FIG. 32.—Horse-chestnut (_Aesculus hippocastanum_), trunk.]

_Habitat and range._—This handsome tree is a native of Asia, largely cultivated in this country as an ornamental shade tree. In parts of New York and New Jersey it has escaped from cultivation.

_Description of tree._—The horse-chestnut is a rather large tree, usually about 40 feet in height, and having many branches. Sometimes it will grow as tall as 100 feet. The bark has a brownish gray color, smoothish on the younger trees, but fissured and scaly on the older ones (fig. 32). The large, shining, resinous leaf buds are a prominent feature of the winter and early spring aspect of the tree. The leaves when mature are smooth, except perhaps for tufts of hairs on the veins of the lower surface, but the young unfolding leaf is quite hairy. The leaves are large, composed of 5 to 7 leaflets 4 to 8 inches long, pointed and broadest at the top and narrowing toward the base, with irregularly round-toothed margins (fig. 33).

[Illustration: FIG. 33.—Horse-chestnut (_Aesculus hippocastanum_), leaves and fruits.]

The flower cluster, sometimes 1 foot in length, is most handsome and showy in appearance, consisting of a dense, somewhat pyramidal head of large white flowers, the petals fringed, wavy, and spotted with yellow and red, and having protruding stamens. They appear about June. The fruit is roundish and prickly, about an inch or so in diameter, and contains a large, shining brown nut (fig. 33). This tree belongs to the buckeye family (Aesculaceæ).

_Other species._—The Ohio buckeye (_Aesculus glabra_ Willd.), called also smooth buckeye and fetid buckeye, occurs in woods and along river banks from Pennsylvania south to Alabama, and westward to Michigan and the Indian Territory. It is a small tree, native in this country, and found in great abundance in Ohio. It gives off a fetid odor, and has leaves consisting of five ovate leaflets, and small insignificant yellow flowers. The bark and nut of this species are also employed in medicine, having properties similar to those of the horse-chestnut, but it is said that their action is more powerful.

_Description of bark._—The horse-chestnut bark of commerce is thin, brownish gray on the outside, and with a few warty protuberances, leafscars, and lichens; the inside of the bark is smooth and whitish, and the whole breaks with a tough, fibrous fracture, showing a brownish color within. The bark has a faint, disagreeable odor, and a rough, bitter, astringent taste.

_Collection, prices, and uses._—Horse-chestnut bark is collected in the autumn, and preference is given to the bark from the younger branches. From 1 to 4 cents a pound is the price paid to collectors.

This bark is used for its “tonic, astringent, febrifuge, narcotic, and antiseptic” properties. The nuts are said to have a narcotic action, and when powdered, excite sneezing.

The leaves are an old remedy in the treatment of whooping cough.

CASCARA SAGRADA.

_Rhamnus purshiana_ DC.

[Illustration: FIG. 34.—Cascara sagrada (_Rhamnus purshiana_), five-year-old tree.]

_Pharmacopœial name._—Rhamnus purshiana.

_Other common names._—Chittem-bark, sacred bark (a translation of the Spanish name “cascara sagrada”), bearberry-tree, bearwood, shittimwood, Purshiana bark, Persiana bark.

_Habitat and range._—This indigenous tree occurs on the sides and bottoms of canyons from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, extending north into British America.

_Description of tree._—The tree furnishing the cascara sagrada of the Pharmacopœia is of small size, usually from 15 to 20 feet in height (fig. 34), the young twigs hairy, and the leaves rather thin. It belongs to the buckthorn family (Rhamnaceæ). The dark green leaves are elliptical in form, from 2 to 6 inches long, and about 1 to 3 inches wide, blunt at the apex or with a short sharp point, finely saw toothed, rounded or slightly heart shaped at the base, somewhat hairy on the lower surface, and rather prominently veined (fig. 35).

The rather small, insignificant greenish flowers are produced in umbels, or clusters, and are followed by black, ovoid, 3-seeded berries, of a somewhat insipid taste (fig. 35).

[Illustration: FIG. 35.—Cascara sagrada (_Rhamnus purshiana_), leaves and fruits.]

_Another species._—Several species of Rhamnus occur in the cascara district, only one of which, however, may be said to enter into competition with the official cascara, and that is the one which is supposed to have been first introduced in medicine. It is known as wild coffee or coffee-berry (_Rhamnus californica_ Esch.). At the present time, however, it is seldom collected, and then only because it may be mistaken by collectors for the official bark. According to the nineteenth edition of the United States Dispensatory (1907), _R. californica_ “is chiefly distinguished from the official species by its leaves being thin, and when not smooth having a short close pubescence, and the primary veins of the under surface not nearly so numerous, straight, or fine as those of _R. purshiana_.” _Rhamnus purshiana_ is abundant in the northern part of California and only sparingly found in the southern portion, whereas exactly the opposite is true of _R. californica_. Professor Rusby (United States Dispensatory, nineteenth edition, 1907) is of the opinion that as a further distinguishing mark in the leaves the channel of the midrib of _R. californica_ is “altogether absent, or shallow, or inconspicuous.”

It is very difficult to distinguish the barks of these two species by their gross characters alone, but a microscopical examination will show structural differences sufficiently distinct to aid in the recognition of the barks.[5] In the powdered state the two species may be distinguished by means of color tests.[6]

_Description of bark._—The cascara sagrada of commerce occurs in curved or quilled pieces, the outer surface of which is reddish brown, and usually covered with growths of light-colored or grayish lichen, wrinkled and somewhat fissured. The inner surface of the bark is smooth and marked with very fine lines; at first the inside is yellowish, but with age it turns a dark brown color. The whole breaks with a short, sharp, yellowish fracture, and has a somewhat aromatic odor and an exceedingly bitter taste. The saliva is colored yellow by it, and anything with which the bark comes in contact for any length of time will also be stained yellow. Cascara sagrada is official in the United States Pharmacopœia.

_Collection, prices, and uses._—The collecting season for cascara opens about the end of May or early in June and closes about the end of August, just before the rainy season sets in, as bark collected after exposure to wet weather is difficult to cure properly.

After the strips of bark have been removed from the trees, they are generally strung on wires to dry, care being taken not to expose the inner surface to the sun, the object being to retain the yellow color, as the action of the sunlight tends to darken the color, an undesirable result, inasmuch as it lowers the market price. During the drying process the strips curl up, forming quills, and when sufficiently dried these are cut or broken up into smaller pieces.

Several years are generally required after collection to properly age the bark for medicinal purposes, and the United States Pharmacopœia directs that it should not be used until at least one year after it has been gathered. Some crude-drug dealers undertake the “aging” of the bark themselves rather than leave it to collectors.

Many trees are annually destroyed in the collection of cascara sagrada, as they are usually peeled to such an extent that no new bark is formed. It has been estimated that one tree furnishes approximately 10 pounds of bark, and granting a crop of 1,000,000 pounds a year, 100,000 trees are thus annually destroyed, and the world’s consumption is said to be about 2,000,000 pounds a year.

The price at present paid to collectors for cascara sagrada varies from 3 to 4-1/2 cents a pound. On account of the fact that cascara sagrada requires several years’ aging before use, a shortage in the crop is not immediately felt.

Cascara sagrada is a most valuable laxative, differing from other drugs of this character in that it tones up the entire intestinal tract, making long-continued dosing or gradually increasing dosage unnecessary.

[Footnote 5: Rusby, H. H. Cascara Sagrada and Its Allies. Proc. Amer. Pharm. Assoc., 1890, pp. 203-211.]

[Footnote 6: Sayre, L. E. Frangula and Cascara Barks. Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1897, pp. 126-134.]

COTTON.

_Gossypium hirsutum_ L. (“_Gossypium herbaceum_ L.”)

_Species._—According to the United States Pharmacopœia, cotton-root bark is obtained from “_Gossypium herbaceum_ Linne,” or from “other cultivated species of Gossypium.”

For years the name _Gossypium herbaceum_ has been used in botanical and other works as applying to American cotton, whereas it is really a name belonging to an Old World species, known as Levant cotton, cultivated in India and also in southern Europe, and it is stated that the American species evidently received the appellation _herbaceum_ as a result of wrong identification by early American authors, and the assumption that it originated from European seed.[7]

[Illustration: FIG. 36.—Cotton (_Gossypium hirsutum_), leaves, flowers, and bolls.]

American Upland cotton is the type most commonly cultivated in the South, from Virginia to Oklahoma and Texas, and this with its hundred or more recognized horticultural varieties all belong to one species, namely, _Gossypium hirsutum_ L.,[8] and not to _G. herbaceum_, and as practically all of the supply of cotton-root bark of the United States is obtained in the United States, it can safely be asserted that _Gossypium hirsutum_ L., and not _G. herbaceum_ L., is the principal source of the bark found in the commerce of our country.

_Description of plant._—The cotton plant in flower or with the bursting bolls showing the fluffy white fiber is very handsome. It belongs to the mallow family (Malvaceæ), and ranges from about 1 to 4 feet in height, with a woody and somewhat branching stem. The leaves of the American Upland cotton, _Gossypium hirsutum_, are 5 lobed, the lobes sharply pointed. The flowers when they first open are creamy white, later on turning purple, and the bracts are deeply cleft. The 4 to 5 celled cotton bolls are roundish oval, bluntly pointed at the top, green at first, but turning brown as they mature, bursting open (September to November in the Southern States), and disclosing the fine fiber that surrounds and completely hides the seeds, and which forms the “cotton” of commerce. (Fig. 36.) This cotton is picked from the bolls by hand, and sent to the cotton gins, where the seed is separated from the lint by machines known by that name. The seed, aside from its use for planting, is employed for fertilizing and feeding purposes, and an oil is also expressed therefrom.

_Description of bark._—Cottonroot bark is official in the United States Pharmacopœia, and the article of commerce consists of long, thin bands, or quills, flexible, of a brownish yellow color on the outside, showing faint ridges and dots or lines. Sometimes the entire outer corky layer, which is thin, is wanting, or there are brownish orange patches where this thin layer has rubbed off or worn away. The inner surface of the bark has a whitish, silky, shining appearance, marked with fine lines. The long, tough bast fibers separate into papery layers. There is no odor, but a faintly acrid and astringent taste.

_Collection, prices, and uses._—The roots are taken up as late as November or December, but before frost, washed, the bark removed with knives, and carefully dried. The fresh bark is regarded as more reliable than the old bark.

At present cotton-root bark is paid for at the rate of from 3 to 5 cents a pound.

This bark, with its emmenagogue and parturifacient properties, forms a valuable remedy in the hands of the physician.

The cotton (the hairs of the seed), freed from impurities and deprived of all fatty matter, is also official in the United States Pharmacopœia.

An oil is expressed from the seed, and various domestic uses have been made of the seed and also of the flowers and leaves.

[Footnote 7: Dewey, L. H. The Identity of American Upland Cotton. Science, n. s., vol. 19, p. 337. 1904.]

[Footnote 8: Dewey, L. H. Principal Commercial Plant Fibers. Yearbook, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1903, p. 388.]

DOGWOOD.

_Cornus florida_ L.

_Other common names._—Cornus, flowering dogwood, American dogwood, Virginia dogwood, Florida dogwood, boxwood, New England boxwood, false boxwood, American cornelian tree, flowering cornel, Florida cornel, white cornel, Indian arrowwood, nature’s-mistake.

[Illustration: FIG. 37.—Dogwood (_Cornus florida_), trunk.]

_Habitat and range._—Dogwood, native in this country, occurs in woods from Massachusetts and southern Ontario to Florida, Texas, and Missouri, but grows most abundantly in the Middle States.

_Description of tree._—The dogwood, which belongs to the dogwood family (Cornaceæ), is never a large tree, its greatest height being 40 feet, and more frequently it occurs as a shrub. It is one of the most conspicuous trees in early spring, the naked, leafless branches supporting numerous large, showy white flowers, so called. The white, petal-like parts, however, which are the most showy portions, are in reality “bracts,” the “flowers” themselves being greenish yellow and inconspicuous, except for these four surrounding bracts. The four bracts, or petal-like parts, are white, sometimes pink tinged, of an inverted oval or heart shape, with prominent parallel veins, and peculiarly notched at the end, as though a piece had been torn or bitten out. (Fig. 38.)

[Illustration: FIG. 38.—Dogwood (_Cornus florida_), leaves, flowers, and fruits.]

After the flowers have disappeared the leaves are put forth. These are generally oval, entire, from 3 to 6 inches in length, the upper surface dark green and smooth or only minutely hairy, while the under surface is lighter in color with slightly hairy veins. The leaves turn a bright red in autumn and with the scarlet fruit, or berries, form a very showy and attractive addition to the autumnal woods. (Fig. 38.)

The trunk of the dogwood is covered with a grayish brown, rough, and fissured bark (fig. 37), and the brown wood is hard and close grained.

_Description of bark._—The root bark as found in the stores has had the fissured grayish brown outside layer removed and consists of short, reddish brown, curved pieces or chips about one-eighth of an inch in thickness. The inside is of a reddish purple color, with many short, broad grooves. The fracture is short. It has an astringent, bitter taste, but practically no odor.

_Collection, prices, and uses._—Dogwood bark is collected from the root in the fall. It brings from 1 to 3 cents a pound.

It is used in medicine for its astringent, tonic, stimulant, and febrifuge properties and in the fresh state is said to be emetic. The root bark was official in the Pharmacopœia from 1830 to 1890. During the Revolutionary war it was much employed as a substitute for Peruvian bark or cinchona.

The flowers and fruits have properties similar to those of the bark.

_Other species._—The bark of the swamp-dogwood (_Cornus amomum_ Mill., syn., _C. sericea_ L.), and the round-leaved dogwood (_C. circinata_ L’Her.) are also used, being sometimes substituted for the flowering dogwood.

The swamp-dogwood, known also as red osier, silky cornel, rose-willow, blue-berried cornel, kinnikinnick, female dogwood, red-brush, red-rod, red willow, and squawbush, is a shrub native in low woods and along streams from Canada to Florida, west to Texas and the Dakotas.

The bark of this species, which was official from 1820 to 1880, is used like the flowering dogwood bark, but is said to be less bitter and astringent. It occurs in thin, quilled pieces, of a purplish brown color on the outside, with fewer warty excrescences than the following species, but otherwise similar. The price paid for this bark ranges from 4 to 6 cents a pound.

The round-leaved dogwood or cornel, called also green osier, is an indigenous shrub growing in shady places in Canada and the northeastern United States.

This bark is also used like that of the flowering dogwood, and was official from 1820 to 1880. It is said to possess less astringency than the flowering dogwood, but is more bitter. In commerce it is found in quilled or curved pieces, of a brownish gray or greenish color outside, with corky warts or marked with lengthwise lines, the inside brown. This also brings from about 4 to 6 cents a pound.

MOOSEWOOD.

_Dirca palustris_ L.

[Illustration: FIG. 39.—Moosewood (_Dirca palustris_), leaves and flowers. (From Edwards’s Botanical Register.)]

_Other common names._—Dirca, American mezereon, leatherwood, leatherbush, leverwood, leaverwood, rope-bark, swampwood, wickopy, wickup.

_Habitat and range._—This native shrub is found in wet woods and thickets from New Brunswick to Florida, west to Missouri and Minnesota, but is most common in the Northern and Eastern States.