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Show 462 WOOD-SORREL. leaves contain a considerable quantity of super-oxalate of potass, and have an extremely pleasant acid taste. They possess the same powers with the vegetable acids in general, and may be given in infusion, or beaten with sugar into a conserve, or boiled with milk to form an acid whey. ‘The super-oxalate of potass is extracted in large quantities from them, and sold under the name of Essential Salt of Lemons. Twenty pounds of the fresh leaves yielded to Neumann six pounds of juice, from which he got two ounces two drachms and a scruple of salt, besides two ounces andsix drachms of an impuresaline mass. MEDICAL USE. A conserve is ordered by the Royal College, which is useful in inflammatory diseases: a whey is likewise made by boiling this plant in milk; andit is used in soups in hot weather, and tends to allay heat andthirst. WALL-STONE CROP, or WALL PEPPER . SEDUM ACRE. Class X. Decandria. Order VY. Penta gynia. Essent. Gen. Cuan. Calyx five-c left: Corolla five petals: Nectariferou s scales five, at the base of the germe n: Capsulesfive. SPEC. CHar. Leaves sub-ovate, adnat e, sessile, gibbous, each alternate, one rather erect: Cyme trifid. ——a DESCRIPTION. A SMALL plant, not more than three inches high. Leaves fleshy, minute, placed like the tiles of a house. Flowers numerous, rather conspicuous, of a yello w colour. HISTORY. A British plant growing on houses, walls, and gravelly banks. MEDICAL VIRTUE. Being highly acrid and stimulant, a decoction has been found of the greatest use in violent scorbutic humours: the process is to boil a handful in eight pints of beer till reduced to four, and to take three or four ounces every other morning, or to use the same in milk: the same is likewise used in dropsy and in cancer with reported success. |