Rumex Acetosella. Sheep sorrel.

Description: Natural Order, Polygonaceae. Generic characteristics as in rumex crispus. Low plants, with annual sterna four to eight inches high, from perennial roots. Leaves oval-lanceolate, blunt at the apex, halbert-eared at the base, especially the lower ones; one to two and a half inches long. Pleasantly acid, and often eaten by children. Flowers dioecious, small, in slender panicled racemes; styles adherent to the angles of the ovaries. Abundant in sandy soils and sterile fields, the fertile panicles turning reddish in summer.

Properties and Uses: This herb is made into an extract, and this is used upon indolent ulcers and cancers, in the same manner as the extract of oxalis acetosella. It forms a sharply stimulating preparation, usually too nearly caustic to be used alone; but when suitably modified by extract of celastrus, it is an agent of much power, and one that deserves attention. Allusion was made to it at oxalis.

The Physiomedical Dispensatory, 1869, was written by William Cook, M.D.
It was scanned by Paul Bergner at http://medherb.com