Callicarpa americana. Sourbush, French mulberry.

Description: Natural Order, Verbenaceae. Genus CALLICARPA: Shrubs with opposite leaves, scurfy pubescence, and small flowers in axillary cymes. Calyx four-toothed, bell-shaped; corolla short bell-shaped, four-lobed; stamens four, exerted; style slender thickened upward; fruit a juicy drupe inclosing four nutlets. C. AMERICANA: Branches and leaves whitish-downy beneath. Leaves ovate-oblong, wavy-toothed, tapering, three to five inches long, two to three inches broad. Flowers small, violet-purple, compound in short cymous clusters; berries abundant, in dense verticils at the axils of the leaves, the size of elderberries, sweetish. Shrub three to five feet high. June and July. Common in the Southern States.

Properties and Uses: The bark is an aromatic bitter, with mild tonic properties. It is rather grateful to the stomach, and promises to be a useful remedy. The leaves act upon the kidneys rather freely.

The Physiomedical Dispensatory, 1869, was written by William Cook, M.D.
It was scanned by Paul Bergner at http://medherb.com