Ruta

Rue. In botany, a genus of the cla dec and ria, order monogynia. Calyx five parted; petals concave; receptacle surrounded with ten melliferous dots; capsule lobed. some species a fifth part of the fructification or number of dots is wanting. Seven species; natives of the south of Europe, and of Palestine. The following four are cultivated, 1, R. grave ole us, Common rue. Root woody, branched; stems: frutescent, covered with a rugged gray striated bark, more t eighteen inches high; leaves more than decompound; leaflets oblong, with an obovate terminal one; petals entire. It has several varieties, as broad-leaved, narrow-leaved, variegated-leaved. Rue has a strong and grateful. smell, and a bitter, hot, penetrating taste; the leaves are so acrid, that by much handling they have been known to irritate and inflame the skin; and the plant, in its natural or uncul= tivated state, is said to po e these sensible qualities still more powerfully. The imaginary quality of the rue, in resisting and expelling contagion, is now laid aside. It is doubtle a powerful stimulant, and is considered, like other medicines of the fetid kind, as po e ing attenuating, deobstruent, antispasmodic powers. In the London pharmacopeeia it is directed in the form of an extract; and it is also an ingredient in the pulvis e myrrh a comp, 2. R. montana. Mountain rue. Leaves more than decompound; all the leaflets linear; petals entire. 3. R.chalepensis. African rue. Very like the first; petals ciliate-toothed. 4. R. patavina. Three-leaved rae. Stalk rises singly from the root, herbaceous, about a foot high; leaves ternate, se ile, linear; flowers yellow. A native of Padua. They may be all propagated by seeds, slips, or cuttings, Rura muraria. The plant to which this name is given in the pharmacopezias, is the asplenium rut a muraria of Linnéus. It is supposed by some to po e specific virtues in the cure of ulcers of the lungs, and is exhibited in the form of decoction.