The Chesnut Tree.
Botanical name:
Castanea.
A TALL, spreading, and beautiful tree. The bark is smooth and grey: the leaves long and moderately broad, deep, and beautifully indented round the edges, and of a fine strong green. The flowers are a kind of catkins, like those of willows, long and slender, and of a yellowish colour; the fruits are covered with a rough prickly shell, and, under that, each particular chesnut has its firm brown coat, and a thin skin, of an austere taste, over the kernel.
This thin skin is the part used in medicine; it is to be separated from the chesnut, not too ripe, and dried: it is a very fine astringent; it stops purgings and overflowings of the menses.
