Statice. Statice Limonium, Marsh Rosemary.
Statice. Statice Limonium (L.) Gray. [Now Limonium carolinianum (Walt.). Britt.. Marsh Rosemary. Ink Root. Sea Lavender. Romarin des Marais, Lavande triste, Fr. Strandnelke, G. (Fam. Plumbaginaceae.)—It is an indigenous maritime plant with a perennial, very astringent, root, sending up annually tufts of leaves, which are obovate or cuneiform, entire, obtuse mucronate, smooth, and on long foot-stalks.
Marsh rosemary grows in the salt marshes along the sea coast from Labrador to Texas, and flowers from July to September. The root, which was formerly in the Secondary List of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, is large, spindle-shaped, or branched, fleshy, compact, rough, and of a purplish-brown color. It is bitter and extremely astringent, but odorless. It contains tannic acid (12.4 per cent.), volatile oil, resin, and other substances. (A. J. P., xiv, 116.) Statice is powerfully astringent, and in some parts of the United States, particularly in New England, is much employed, especially as a local application, in decoction, to aphthous and ulcerative affections of the mouth and fauces.
In Brazil and Buenos Ayres the roots of S. brasiliensis Boiss. are employed under the name of Buaycura or Guayoura. (P. J., 1878, ix, 466.) For a description of the physical and chemical characteristics of the root, see P. J., vol. xv, 86. In Russia and Spain the very large roots of S. latifolia Sm. are used for tanning, and in Morocco the roots of S. mucronata L. are stated to be employed, under the name of safrifa, as a nervine.
