(HEPATICA AMERICANA)
MEDICINAL PART. The plant.
Description.--This is a perennial plant, the root of which consists of numerous strong fibres. The leaves are all radical, on long, hairy petioles, smooth, evergreen, cordate at base, the new ones appearing later than the flowers. The flowers appear almost as soon as the snow leaves the ground in the spring. Fruit an ovate achenium.
HEPATICA ACUTALOBA, or Heart Liver-leaf, which possesses the same medicinal qualities, differs from the above in having the leaves with three ovate, pointed lobes, or sometimes five-lobed. They both bear white, blue, or purplish flowers, which appear late in March or early in April.
History.--These plants are common to the United States, growing in woods and upon elevated situations--the former, which is the most common, being found on sides of hills, exposed to the north, and the latter on the southern aspect. The plants yield their virtues to water.
Properties and Uses.--It is a mild, mucilaginous astringent, and is freely used in infusion, in fevers, diseases of the liver; and for bleeding from the lungs, coughs, etc., it is a most valuable curative.
Dose.--Infusion taken ad libitum.