Spec. Plant. Willd. ii. 865. Cl.11. Ord. 1. Dodecandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Lythraceae. G. 951. Calyx twelve-toothed. Petals six, inserted into the calyx.

Capsule two-celled, with many seeds. Species 1. L. Salicaria.1 Loosestrife, or Purple Willow Herb.

Med. Bot. 2d edit. Smith, Flora Brit. 510. Eng. Bot. 1061. Officinal. Lythrum Salicaria; herba, Bub. Loosestrife.

Syn. Salicaire (F.), Brainier Wiederich (G.), Partike (Dutch), Salicaria (I.).

This is an indigenous, perennial plant, found wild in almost every part of Europe, in marshes, and on the banks of rivers, flowering from July till September. It is an elegant plant. The root is woody, branched, and extended; sending up an erect, leafy, slender, reddish, downy stem, about three feet in height, quadrangular, and sometimes hexagonous. The leaves are opposite, sessile, lanceolate, and cordate at the base; smooth on the upper surface, but pubescent beneath, and at the margin. The flowers are in the axillae of the leaves, forming a leafy spike of a verticilated aspect: the calyx is red, hairy, and the segments of different shapes; six being awl-shaped and erect, and six small, ovate, concave, and bent inwards; the petals are oblong, undulated, and of a purple colour. The stamens are alternately longer and inflected. The capsule is elliptical and small.

Qualities.-Loosestrife, in the dried state, is inodorous, and has an herbaceous, sub-astringent taste. In coction with water, it renders the fluid mucilaginous; and the decoction strikes a black colour with sulphate of iron.

Medical properties and uses.-This plant is astringent and tonic. It is recommended by De Haen, and has long been celebrated in Ireland as a remedy in diarrhoea: it has also

Dioscoridis. This species of Lythrum is the only species of the order Lythraceae yet found in New Holland.

been found useful in dysentery. It is always proper to give a purgative prior to its use being begun. The best form of giving it is that of decoction, made by boiling j. of the recent root with Oj. of water. The dose of the dried herb, in powder, is from 3 ss. to Эiv., that of the decoction of the root f j., repeated every third hour.