Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Order Cxxxii
THYMELÆÆ.
Nearly all shrubby plants, found in all parts of the world, but most abundantly in the south of Africa. The flowers are white. yellow, or red, most commonly in clusters, and often fragrant; the foliage is entire, either smooth or silvery, and generally very neat. Their wood is particularly soft; their inner bark easily separable, and in Daphne Lagetta, pulls out by the division of the vertical fibres into a sort of network resembling lace. Their bark is extremely acrid, acting as a vesicatory when applied to the skin, and if chewed, producing extreme heat and torture in the mouth; a decoction of it has been used with some success in venereal diseases. The seeds of these plants are poisonous to man, but birds eat them with impunity. The fibres of Dírca and Lagétta are used for cordage; those of Daphne gnídium and Passerína tinctória are employed in the south of Europe for staining wool yellow, which is converted into green by the addition of Isátis. 73 Pimeléa B. P. 910 Daphne W. 249 Struthiola W. 909 Lagétta J. 911 Dírca W. 912 Gnídia W. 913 Stelléra W. 914 Passerína L.
SANTALACEE. 915 Lachnæ'a W. 1032 Dáis W.
ORDER CXXXIII.
Trees or dwarf herbs, with inconspicuous or unattractive flowers. They are chiefly natives of the Cape, New Holland, and India, a few only being found in Europe and North America. Their virtues are few. The wood of Sántalum álbum has a sweet aromatic flavor, and a slightly bitter taste it is chiefly known as a perfume, although it is said to possess mild sudorific properties. The leaves of Myoschílos are purgative, of Osýris japónica eatable as salad; Thésium is slightly astringent. 307 Sántalum W. 569 Thésium W. 908 Memecylon W. 1033 Bucída W. 2051 Osýris W. 2141 Fusánus L. 2161 Nýssa W. 2162 Hamiltónia W.