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Show BLACK HELLEBORE, OR CHRISTMAS ROSE. 555 talks. The simple resembling a foot, fixed upon radical foots ds the top. towar ted Jeaves are oval, smooth, thick, serra f, HISTORY. in the mountainous This plant is perennial, and grows wild Appennines. ‘The parts of Austria, and on the Pyrennees and appear in December, earliness of its flowers, which sometimes has gained it a place in our gardens. roundish head, about The roots consist of a black furrowed ulated branches the size of a nutmeg, from which short artic the thick. about , ibres gatedf corru arise, sending out numerous brown on deep h, lengt in foot a to span ‘a ness of a straw, from' anacrid, of and the outside, white or yellowish white within, numband heat of nauseous, and bitterish taste, exciting 4 sense fibres e Thes smell. acrid ness in the tongue, and of a nauseous are parts ed decay arid head the only are used in medicine, and rejected. BLACK HELLEBORE, OR CHRISTMAS ROSE. HELLEBORUS NIGER. Class XIII. Polyandria. Order VI. Polygynia. Lissent. me Cuar. Calyx none: Petals five, or more : Nectary bilabiate, ions Gen ubular: Capsule many-seeded, rather erect Spec. Caar HAR. $c Scape one- or two-flowered, nearly naked: Leaves pedate. a T DESCRIPTION. HE scape or flowerstalk is erect, and proceeds from a bractea er rather involucram. The flowers are white, | first sonst cnous, afterwards turn green. ‘The nectaries are eight, tubular andbilabiate, of a green colour. The germina a foot four to eight. The leaves are compound, divided in a peculiar manner roots of For the roots of the real black hellebore, the a, Astranthe Adonis vernalis, Trollius Europzus, Actea spicat , album and Acotia major, Helleborus viridis foetidus, Veratrum is a most nitum neomontanum, are often substituted. The last fubeing roots its by virulent poison, and may be distinguished e brittl very rous nume out ng siform, or nearly globular, sendi the as thick as r, colou n brow or fibres, of a grayish black to avoid finger, and repeatedly divided. But the surest way itself in his mistakes, is by the apothecary cultivating the plant own garden. 81 waNeumann got from 2880 grains, 380 alcoholic, and‘1 Its olic. alcoh 181 and y, water tery extract’; and inversely, 362 it loses active constituent seems to be of a volatile nature ; for an acrid its virtues by keeping, and water distilled from it has taste. MEDICAL USE. er In large doses, hellebore is a drastic purgative; in small ipally used as doses, it is diuretic and emmenagogue. It is princ y, worms, drops , coma, choly melan , mania of a purgative in cases res very requi and psora, and as an emmenagogue. But its use by great caution, for its effects are very uncertain, andaffected many circumstances. ugh its It is commonly exhibited in the form of extract, altho ion activity be much dissipated by the preparation. An infus rm unifo more of andtincture certainly promise to be medicines powers. |