Statice Caroliniana. Marsh rosemary, Ink-root, Sea-lavender, American thrift.

Description: Natural Order, Plumbaginaceae. Maritime herbs with perennial roots and an annual flower-scape. Leaves radical, oblong, spathulate, petioled, erect, thick, tipped with a deciduous bristly point. Scape round, smooth, erect, branched, six to eighteen inches high. Flowers loosely spiked on one side of the branches, two to three-bracted; calyx funnel-form, dry, membranous, persistent, five-parted; corolla of five long-clawed petals, lavender-colored; stamens five, on the claws of the corolla. An inhabitant of salt marshes from New England southward. August and September.

Properties and Uses: The root is large, hard, and of a reddish-brown color, of an intensely astringent character, containing a large percentage of tannin. Its action much resembles that of geranium, but is more intense; and may be used in the same general classes of cases, as chronic dysentery and diarrhea, aphthous ulcerations, putrid sore throat, leucorrhea, local hemorrhages, etc. When Dr. Thomson was on trial for the murder of Ezra Lovette, (see Lobelia,) Dr. French testified on oath that a certain powder exhibited in Court, and prescribed by Thomson, was lobelia, but it proved to be (marsh) rosemary.

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