Cardamine

Cardamine. Cardamine pratensis L. Cuckoo-flower.—This is a perennial herbaceous plant, of the fam. Cruciferae, with a simple, smooth, erect stem, about a foot in height. The plant grows in Northern Europe and to some extent in wet places and bogs from New Jersey northward to Labrador. Its bitterish and slightly pungent leaves are supposed to be antiscorbutic. The seeds are said to contain myronic acid, and to yield on decomposition by hydrolysis an oil analogous to oil of mustard. Feist investigated C. amara L. and its volatile oil and found thio-urea. Kuntze states that two kinds of crystals were isolated, both being forms of thio-urea. (A. Pharm., 1907, 657.) In Europe they are sometimes added to salads. The flowers formerly possessed the reputation of being diuretic, and of being useful in chorea and asthma.

The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918, was edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others.