(CYPRIPEDIUM PUBESCENS)
COMMON NAMES. American Valerian, Umbel, Nerve-root, Yellow-Moccasin flower, Noah's Ark.
MEDICINAL PART. The root.
Description.--This indigenous plant has a perennial, fibrous, fleshy root, from which arise several round leafy stems, from twelve to eighteen inches high. The leaves are from three to six inches long, by two or three broad, oblong, lanceolate, acuminate, pubescent, alternate, generally the same number on each side. Flowers large and very showy, and pale yellow.
History.--This plant grows here in rich woods and meadows, and flowers in May and June. There are several varieties of it, but as they all possess the same medicinal properties, a description of each is not requisite or desirable.
Properties and Uses.--The fibrous roots are the parts used in medicine, and they should be gathered and carefully cleansed in August or September. The properties and uses are various. The preparations made from these roots are tonic and stimulant, diaphoretic, and anti-spasmodic, and are considered to be unequalled in remedying hysteria, chorea, nervous headache, and all cases of nervous irritability. Carefully prepared with special reference to the case, it has proved to be a valuable remedy in cases of epilepsy; the preparation has however to be skillfully compounded. It is also used for delirium, neuralgia, hypochondria and other nervous disorders; the form of the preparation is an alcoholic extract. It is specially beneficial in cases of nervous headache, when administered with other remedies, as Cypripedium Pubescens, Nepeta, Cataria, &c.; taking the infusion about every half-hour, till the pain ceases.
Dose.--From ten to twenty grains; tincture, from one to three fluid drachms; infusion, from one to four fluid ounces. When made into powder, one drachm in warm water is a dose, and may be repeated, in season, as often as may be required.