Sketches Towards a Hortus Botanicus Americanus (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1811 Excerpt: ...n. o. Scitamineae; Fr. Racine i fleche; Span. Saeta-Raiz; nat. South America; called by the Indians, Toulola, Aguetiguepa, and sometimes Sagittaria Alexipharmica. This valuable plant is herbaceous, having tapering white roots covered with a thin brown skin, nearly the shape and size of carrots, marked with annularprotuberanc.es. The stalks are reed-like, about four feet high bearing at their summits small white flowers; the leaves are oval, acute angled, alternate and when gathered roll up lengthways. Seed vessel roundish, obscurely three-sided. The roots being scraped, washed and pounded, in wooden mortars, and macerated in water, yield a flour of a snowy whiteness, which no worms will touch. Made into a jelly with boiling water, it is a most cordial and nourishing food, that will remain on the stomach when nothing else will; and a pudding made of it, is most excellent for convalescents. It is also used for starch, which is far superior to that made of wheat flour in quality, and one pound is equal to two pounds and a half, of that prepared from wheat; and by its use, immense quantities of wheat might be saved annually. The root may be candied as Eryngo, possessing nearly the same virtues. The fresh expressed juice of the root with water, is a powerful antidote to vegetable poisons (as the Savanna flower), taken inwardly; the bruised root outwardly applied, is a cure for the wounds of poisoned arrows, scorpions, or black spiders, and arrests the progress of Gangrene. It is propagated by cuttings of the roots, and made for sale in considerable quantities in the West Indies, for about a dollar per pound. It has thriven in America, in the states of South Carolina and Georgia, and produced 1840 pounds to the acre; and perhaps would be well worthy attention in ...