File:American medical botany- being a collection of the native medicinal plants of the United States, containing their botanical history and chemical analysis, and properties and uses in medicine, diet and (14740706676).jpg

Identifier: 2543055RX3.nlm.nih.gov
Title: American medical botany: being a collection of the native medicinal plants of the United States, containing their botanical history and chemical analysis, and properties and uses in medicine, diet and the arts, with coloured engravings (Volume 3)
Year: 1817 (1810s)
Authors: Bigelow, Jacob, 1786-1879 Annin, William B., 1791?-1839, engraver Coxe, John Redman, 1773-1864, former owner Annin & Smith, engraver Cummings and Hilliard, publisher Hilliard and Metcalf, printer
Subjects: Plants, Medicinal Phytotherapy
Publisher: Boston : Published by Cummings and Hilliard, at the Boston Bookstore, no. 1, Cornhill
Contributing Library: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons, U.S. National Library of Medicine

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e scarce, and accessible to buta small number of those who pursue this study.It is hoped that the present work may, in a cer-tain degree, supply the deficiency, at least untilthe extension of natural science among us, andthe increased number of botanical students, shallcall forth and support works of greater magnitude. A part of the plants contained in this workhave never been figured in any botanical work.Others have been represented a great number oftimes ; yet their importance, in a medical point ofview, required their admission; and the figurebeing always made from an American specimen,it may, on this account, be not destitute of in-terest. Having arrived at the termination of theAmerican Medical Botany, the author feels it2 X PREFACE. incumbent on him to state, that he has at no timehad cause to regret the undertaking of a work,which has furnished a most interesting employ-ment for his leisure hours ; and which has beenhonored with a patrouage, greatly exceeding hisanticipations.
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(///// ////r fr//f/f*r/fi AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANY. GILLENIA TRIFOLIATA. Common Gillenia. PLATE XLI. JN otwithstanding the principle avowed byLinnaeus, that genera are formed by nature ; thedetermination of generic consanguinity in speciesoccasions in many instances one of the greatestperplexities of the botanist. What difference instructure and external form either of flower orfruit, is sufficient to separate families of plantsfrom each other; is a point often difficult to decide;and is perhaps as frequently set at rest by conve-nience and by arbitrary decision, as it is by anyunexceptionable boundaries designated in nature.When the species of a vegetable order are exceed-ingly numerous, and a close similarity pervadesthe whole ; genera are multiplied by botanists,that the discrimination of species may be facilitat- 42 GILLENIA TRIFOLIATA. ed. Ou the other hand, where a group of speciesis not unwieldy from its size, or deficient in dis-tinctive marks, the genera are made as compre-hen2543055RX3.nlm.nih.gov

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