Gerardia pedicularia. Bushy Gerardia.

Nat Ord. — Scrophulariaceae. Sex. Syst. — Didynamia Angiospermia.

The Herb.

Description. — This is the Dasystoma Pedicularia of Bentham ; it is a perennial plant, known also by the names of Feverweed, Lousewort, American Foxglove, etc. Its stem is tall and bushy, with a scattered, woolly pubescence, two or three feet in hight, and brachiate-panicled. The leaves are numerous, opposite, ovate-lanceolate or oblong, pinnatifid, the segments doubly cut-dentate. The flowers are large, yellow, axillary, trumpet-shaped, opposite, and pedicelled ; pedicels longer than the calyx. The calyx is five-cleft, cut-dentate, segments as long as the hairy tube. The corolla is yellow, an inch or more in length, sub-campanulate, unequally five-lobed, segments mostly rounded, spreading, leaf-like, and woolly inside. Capsule two-celled, dehiscent at the top.

History. — This is a most elegant plant found growing in dry copses, pine ridges, and barren woods and mountains from Canada to Georgia and Kentucky, and flowering in August and September. The whole plant is used. Water or spirits extracts its virtues. It has not been analyzed. There are several varieties of the species, which probably possess analogous virtues.

Properties and Uses. — Diaphoretic, antiseptic, and sedative. Used principally in febrile and inflammatory diseases ; a warm infusion produces a free and copious perspiration in a short time. Dose of the infusion, from one to three fluidounces.

Off. Prep. — Infusum Gerardiae.

The American Eclectic Dispensatory, 1854, was written by John King, M. D.