IMPERATORIA Ostruthium.
M a ste rw o rt.
PENTANDRIA Digynia.
G en. Char. General Invol. none. Flowers all fertile.
P et. inflexed, notched, nearly equal. Fruit roundish,
compressed, bordered, swelling in the middle, with
3 ribs. Umbels flat.
Spec. Char.......................
Syn . Imperatoria Ostruthium. Linn. Sp. PI. 371.
Sm. FI. B rit. 327. Light/. 168. Huds. 649.
W ith. 308. H ull. 68. Woodv. Med. Bot. t. 35.
Imperatoria. Ger. em. 1001.
L i g h t f o o t is our only authority for admitting this as a
British plant. He noticed it “ on the banks of the Clyde in
“ several places, and in the isle of Bute, near Mount-
“ Stewart,” but was uncertain whether it were indigenous or
not. The places mentioned seem such as are natural to it.
Our specimen is necessarily a garden one.
Masterwort is perennial, and flowers in June. The root is
tuberous, jointed, acrid, and aromatic, long supposed a
sovereign remedy against all poison. Gerarde says it is
“ also singular against all corrupt and naughty aire and in-
“ fection of the pestilence— cures pestilential carbuncles and
“ botches— cold fits of agues— dropsy— dissolves all vento-
“ sides or windinesse of the stomache and other parts— and
“ greatly helpeth such as have taken great squats, bruises, or
“ falls from some high place,” &c. &c. Well might it be
called Masterwort! It seems the master key of physic and
surgery.------Its qualities and habit are certainly nearly akin to
those of Angelica, though their botanical characters do not
agree. The stem is a foot and half high, round, smooth.
Leaves twice ternate, smooth, serrated and cut. Umbels of
many rays, flattish, with scarcely ever any general involucrum;
the partial ones are of a few narrow leaves. Flowers almost
uniform. Seeds with a broad border.