OCR Text |
Show SWEET VIOLET. 729 MEDICAL USE. They impart their colour and flavour to aqueous liquors: a syrup made from the infusion has long had aplace in the shops, and is said to be an agreeable and useful laxative for children, butis chiefly valued as a delicate test of the presence of uncom. bined acids or alkalies, the former changing its blue to red, and the latter to a green colour. OFFICINAE PREPARATION. Syrup or Vioter Frowers. (Syrupus Viole.) Take of the fresh flowers of the violefs, two pounds, of boiling distilled water, five pints: Macerate for twenty-four hours, and strain the liquor 'thrc acloth, without pressing, and add the double refined sugar, to make the syrup. CULINARY PREPARATION. SWEET. Veidthls E.T. VIOLA ODORA TiA EEL Class XIX. Syngenesia. Fissent. Gen. Cuar. Order VI. Monogamia. Calyxfive-leaved: Corolla five-petalled, irregular, behind horned: Capsule above, three-valved, one-celled. Spec. Cuar. NoStem: Leaves cordate, stoloniferous. EE DESCRIPTION. A swat plant. Leaves veined, crenated, on the upper part smooth, of a shining green, underneath paler, somewhat hairy, standing uponlong footstalks. Flowers single, of a deep,purple, Calyx composedof five leaves, and the corolla offive petals. HiS TORY, This plant is perennial, and is found wild under hedges and in shady places; but the shops are generally supplied fromgar dens. It blows in March and April. Its flowers are so Temarkable for their odour and colour, that they have given * name to both. In our markets we meet with the flowers other species: these may be distinguished from the foregoing by their being larger, of a pale colour, and haying no smell, Vinegar acquires a very agreeable colour andtaste by infusing in it some petals of this odoriferous flower. |