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Dwarf Honey-Suckle

Description. The root is long and slender, and spreading. It runs under the surface, and is furnished with many fibres. The stalk is round, slender, upright and about five inches high. The leaves are placed in pairs: they are large, oblong, broad-pointed at the ends, not at all divided at the edges, and marked with high ribs: they have no foot-stalks, and their colour is a blueish green. The flower is large and white, and stands at the top of the stalk: but there usually rise two little shoots from the same point; each of which has two or four leaves on it like the others. The fruit consists of several little berries joined together, and are of a fine red. The whole plant, as it decays, often becomes reddish.

Place. We have it on the hills in the northern parts of the kingdom. Time. It flowers in May.

Government and virtues. Like the former, this is a hot martial herb. The root is austere and bitterish to the taste, the leaves mildly acid; which last quality the berries possess in so remarkable a degree that the birds refuse to feed upon them. Boiled up with fine sugar, they make a very agreeable jelly, which is of great use in hot bilious fevers, and putrid disorders. A decoction of the bark is a good lotion for the itch, and other cutaneous eruptions.