Stomach & Intestinal

Vitis vinifera is a deciduous Climber growing to 15 m (49ft 3in) at a fast rate. It has larger fruits, 6-22 mm, which are sweet and vary in colour from green, yellow, red, or blackish-purple, with 2 or no seeds. 

Vine stems are "lianas" or woody, climbing vines and can be up to 35 m, climbing over trees, rocks or the pergola at the third floor of my neighbour's apartment. In cultivation it is usually reduced by annual pruning to 1-3 m. Most grapes have loose, flaky bark on older wood usually peeling from old stems in long shreds, but smooth bark on 1-year-old wood.

The leafs are cordate, usually palmately 5- to 7-lobed, leaf margins irregularly toothed (dentate), alternate and stipulate. The frizzy, long curly hairs can be found at the underside of the leaf; this arachnoid tomentum looks like the threads of a spiders cobweb. The veins at the underside of the leaf are also hairy. The upperside is glabrescent. Leaves can be quite large, sometimes more then 25 cm in width.

This climbing shrub has divided compound leaves, flowers yellow panicles, fruit pear shaped, three sided, three-celled capsules, with thin partitions, in each a seed like a small horse-chestnut half enclosed in an aril, flesh coloured and easily separated when dried.

After the seeds are shelled and washed they are roasted for six hours, then put into sacks and shaken till their outside shell comes off, they are then pounded into a fine powder and made into a dough with water, and rolled into cylindrical pieces 8 inches long; these are then dried in the sun or over a slow fire, till they became very hard and are then a rough and reddish-brown colour, marbled with the seeds and testa in the mass. They break with an irregular fracture, have little smell, taste astringent, and bitter like chocolate without its oiliness, and in colour like chocolate powder; it swells up and partially dissolves in water.

The Heartsease is as variable as any of the other members of the genus, but whatever modifications of form it may present, it may always be readily distinguished from the other Violets by the general form of its foliage, which is much more cut up than in any of the other species and by the very large leafy stipules at the base of the true leaves. The stem, too, branches more than is commonly found in the other members of the genus. Besides the free branching of the stem, which is mostly 4 to 8 inches in height, it is generally very angular. The leaves are deeply cut into rounded lobes, the terminal one being considerably the largest. In the other species of Viola the foliage is ordinarily very simple in outline, heartshaped, or kidney-shaped, having its edge finely toothed. The flowers (1/4 to 1 1/4 inch across) vary a great deal in colour and size, but are either purple, yellow or white, and most commonly there is a combination of all these colours in each blossom. The upper petals are generally most showy in colour and purple in tint, while the lowest and broadest petal is usually a more or less deep tint of yellow. The base of the lowest petal is elongated into a spur, as in the Violet. The flowers are in due course succeeded by the little capsules of seeds, which when ripe, open by three valves. Though a near relative of the Violet, it does not produce any of the curious bud-like flowers - cleistogamous flowers - characteristic of the Violet, as its ordinary showy flowers manage to come to fruition so that there is no necessity for any others. Darwin found that the humble bee was the commonest insect visitor of the Heartsease, though the moth Pluvia visited it largely - another observer mentions Thrips small wingless insects - as frequent visitors to the flowers. Darwin considered that the cultivated Pansy rarely set seed if there were no insect visitors, but that the little Field Pansy can certainly fertilize itself if necessary. The flower protects itself from rain and dew by drooping its head both at night and in wet weather, and thus the back of the flower and not its face receives the moisture.

The annual and biennial form spring indifferently from the same crop of seed, the former growing during summer to a height of from 1 to 2 feet, and flowering and perfecting seed, the latter producing the first season only a tuft of radical leaves, which disappear in winter, leaving underground a thick, fleshy root, from the crown of which arises in spring a branched, flowering stem, usually much taller and more vigorous than the flowering stems of the annual plants. The annual form is apparently produced by the weaker and later developed seeds formed in the fruit at the ends of the shoots; it is considered to be less active than the typical species and differs in being of dwarfed growth and having rather paler flowers. The British drug of commerce consists of dense flowering shoots only, and of larger size.

It is a tall, upright perennial has single flowers of various colors that grow along a spike. It blooms in early summer and midsummer.

A. rosea is a robust biennial or short-lived perennial to 2m or more, with shallowly lobed, rounded leaves and long erect racemes of open funnel-shaped flowers to 10cm across, which may be pink, purple, red, white or yellow

The root is stout and perennial. The stem that arises from it every year is of a twining nature, reaching a great length, flexible and very tough, angled and prickly, with a tenacious fibre.
The leaves are heart-shaped and lobed, on foot-stalks, and as a rule placed opposite one another on the stem, though sometimes the upper leaves are arranged singly on the stem, springing from altenate sides. They are of a dark-green colour with their edges finely toothed.

The flowers spring from the axils of the leaves. The Hop is dioecious, i.e. male and female flowers are on separate plants. The male flowers are in loose bunches or panicles, 3 to 5 inches long. The female flowers are in leafy cone-like catkins, called strobiles.

When fully developed, the strobiles are about 1 1/4 inch long, oblong in shape and rounded, consisting of a number of overlapping, yellowish-green bracts, attached to a separate axis. If these leafy organs are removed, the axis will be seen to be hairy and to have a little zigzag course. Each of the bracts enfolds at the base a small fruit (achene), both fruit and bract being sprinkled with yellow translucent glands, which appear as a granular substance.

Much of the value of Hops depends on the abundance of this powdery substance, which contains 10 per cent of Lupulin, the bitter principle to which Hops owe much of their tonic properties.

It is a grey-leaved herbaceous perennial plant, somewhat resembling mint in appearance, and grows to 25–45 centimetres (10–18 in) tall. The leaves are 2–5 cm (0.8–2.0 in) long with a densely crinkled surface, and are covered in downy hairs. The flowers are white, borne in clusters on the upper part of the main stem.

It is often of a pale chestnut color, but varies considerably, being sometimes almost entirely greyish-white; and grows to a height of from 3 to 4 in., the branches being channelled or rolled into tubes, which end in flattened lobes with fringed edges.

The plant has a slender stem which grows partly underground and is often procumbent at the base, the lower portion being knotted. Fibrous rootlets are given off from the knots, and some of them develop an abnormally thick bark, in which much starch is deposited. The thickened rootlets alone are collected and dried for medicinal use, since the active constituents of the drug are found chiefly in the bark.

Cartilaginous, dark purplish-red, red, yellowish or greenish fronds to 150 mm high, gametophyte plants are often iridescent under water when in good condition. Stipe compressed, narrow, expanding gradually to a flat, repeatedly dichotomously branched frond, in tufts from a discoid holdfast. Axils rounded, apices blunt or subacute, frond thicker in centre than margins. Very variable in breadth of segments. Very variable in branching, colour and thickness.

Ipomoea purga is described as a vine that can reach heights of 12 feet. When fresh, the root is black externally, white and milky within, and varies in size according to its age. It has heart shaped flowers and purple trumpet like leaves. Ipomoea purga is rather difficult to break down, but if triturated with cream of tartar, sugar of milk, or other hard salts, the process of pulverization is much easier, and the powder rendered much finer. When in powder form in order to ingest, the color is a pale grayish-brown

The plant bearing star-anise is a small tree or shrub, indigenous to southwestern China, growing in the mountainous elevations of Yunnan. The shrub attains a height of from 8 to 12 feet, and has entire, lanceolate, evergreen leaves, which are pellucid-punctate. The flowers are polypetalous and of a greenish-yellow color. The fruit is described below. This plant was introduced into Japan by the followers of Buddha, and planted near their temples.

The root of an Indian leguminous plant, Abrus precatorius (Linn.), under the native names of Gunga or Goonteh, has been used as a demulcent. It contains Glycyrrhizin, and has been termed Indian Liquorice and used as a substitute for true Liquorice. Acrid resins, however, render the root irritant and poisonous.

It is 20 to 30 feet high, trunk 3 or 4 feet in diameter, branches slender with pale bark, the younger ones covered with dense ferruginous tomentosum; leaves alternate, articulate petioles, 1 to 2 inches long; rusty tomentose, blade 3 to 6 inches long, ovate with two obscure glands at base, entire, coriaceous, upper surface glabrous, veins very prominent on under surface, flowers dioecious. Males three together in the axils of small bracts arranged in longer much-branched axillary branches to the females, both densely covered with ferrugineous tomentosum, flowering November to January. From the surface of the trilobed capsules of the plant, which are about the size of peas, a red mealy powder is obtained; this consists of minute glands and hairs coloured brick or madder red, nearly odourless and tasteless; it is much used by the Hindu silk dyers, who obtain from it by boiling in carbonate of soda, a durable flame colour of great beauty. The capsules are ripe February and March, when the red powder is brushed off and collected for sale; no other preparation is necessary to preserve it.

Citrus limon is the leading acid citrus fruit, because of its very appealing color, odor and flavor. The true lemon tree reaches 10 to 20 feet in height and usually has sharp thorns on the twigs. Leaves are reddish when young, and become dark green above, light green below. Mildly fragrant flowers may be solitary, or there may be two or more. Buds are reddish. Opened flowers have 4 or 5 petals, white on upper surface, purplish beneath. Fruit is oval with a nipple-like protuberance and is light-yellow. It is aromatic, and dotted with oil glands.