Stomach & Intestinal

Quercus robur is a large deciduous tree, with circumference of grand oaks from 4 m (13') to exceptional 12m (40'). Majesty Oak with the circumference of 12,2 m (40') is the thickest tree in Great Britain, but Kaive Oak in Latvia with the circumference of 10,2 m (33,5') is the thickest tree in Northern Europe. Q. robur has lobed and nearly sessile (very short-stalked) leaves 7–14 cm long. Flowering takes place in mid spring, and their fruit, called acorns, ripen by the following autumn.

The acorns are 2–2.5 cm long, pedunculate (having a peduncle or acorn-stalk, 3–7 cm long) with one to four acorns on each peduncle.

The shape of the oak leaves is too familiar to need description. The flowers are of two kinds; the male, or barren, in long drooping catkins, 1 to 3 inches long, appearing with the leaves, and the leaves and the fertile flowers in distant clusters, each with a cup-shaped, scaly involucre, producing, as fruit, an acorn 1/2 to 1 inch long. 

 The Oak is noted for the slowness of its growth, as well as for the large size to which it attains.

This much-branched evergreen tree varies in size from 2 to 15 m high. The leaves have an opposite, decussate arrangement, and are entire, 3 to 7 cm long and 0.8 to 2.5 cm wide; the apex is acute with a small hook or point, and the base is attenuate to cuneate. Leaf margins are entire and recurved, the upper surface is grey-green and glossy, and the lower surface has a dense covering of silvery, golden or brown scales. Domatia are absent; venation is obvious on the upper surface and obscure on the lower surface; the petiole is up to 10 mm long. Fruit are borne in panicles or racmes 50 to 60mm long. The calyx is four-lobed, about 1mm long. The corolla is greenish-white or cream; the tube is 1 to 2mm long; lobes are about 3mm long and reflexed at the anthesis. The two stamens are fused near the top of the corolla tube, with bilobed stigma. The globose to ellipsoid fruit is a drupe, 6mm in diameter and 15 to 25 mm long; it is fleshy, glaucous to a dull shine when ripe, and purple-black. The tree usually flowers in spring. The wood is much-prized and durable, with a strong smell similar to bay rum, and is used for fine furniture and turnery.

The papaya is a large, tree-like plant, with a single stem growing from 5 to 10 m (16 to 33 ft) tall, with spirally arranged leaves confined to the top of the trunk. The lower trunk is conspicuously scarred where leaves and fruit were borne. The leaves are large, 50–70 cm (20–28 in) in diameter, deeply palmately lobed, with seven lobes. Unusually for such large plants, the trees are dioecious.

The tree is usually unbranched, unless lopped. The flowers are similar in shape to the flowers of the Plumeria, but are much smaller and wax-like. They appear on the axils of the leaves, maturing into large fruit - 15–45 cm (5.9–17.7 in) long and 10–30 cm (3.9–11.8 in) in diameter. The fruit is ripe when it feels soft (as soft as a ripe avocado or a bit softer) and its skin has attained an amber to orange hue.

Parsley is a bright green, biennial, plant in temperate climates, or an annual herb in subtropical and tropical areas.

Where it grows as a biennial, in the first year, it forms a rosette of tripinnate leaves 10–25 cm long with numerous 1–3 cm leaflets, and a taproot used as a food store over the winter. In the second year, it grows a flowering stem to 75 cm tall with sparser leaves and flat-topped 3–10 cm diameter umbels with numerous 2 mm diameter yellow to yellowish-green flowers.

The seeds are ovoid, 2–3 mm long, with prominent style remnants at the apex. One of the compounds of the essential oil is apiol. The plant normally dies after seed maturation.

Pepper plants are climbers which grow to a height or length of 10 m or more. When its main stem is established, it grows lots of side shoots to create a bushy column.

The plants form short roots, called adventitious roots, which connect to surrounding supports.

Although black pepper is cultivated in many tropical regions, it is native to Kerala State in India where it still occurs wild in the mountains.

Leaves - arranged alternately on the stems. They are shaped like almonds and taper towards the tip. They are dark green and shiny above but paler green below.

Flowers - grow in clusters along flowering stalks known as spikes. Between 50 to 150 whitish to yellow-green flowers are produced on a spike.

Fruits - the flowers develop into round, berry-like fruits. There may be 50-60 fruits on each spike. They grow to a diameter of 4 to 6 mm, each containing a single seed. Fruits are green at first but they turn red as they ripen. These fruits are picked when either green or red to produce black and white pepper.

The root-stock is slender, the stem also slender, round, striate, 9 inches to 3 feet high. The root-leaves are numerous, shortly stalked, pinnate, the leaflets oval or roundish, four to eight pairs, sometimes so deeply cut as to be bipinnate, sometimes merely serrated. The stem-leaves are few, with the petiole dilated, particularly in the uppermost ones, the leaflets narrower than in the radical leaves, and pinnatifid. The upper leaves are reduced to dilated sheaths, the leaflets represented by one or more linear lobes. The umbels are regular, flattopped, the umbelules many-flowered, the individual flowers 1/10 inch across, white, with notched petals. The whole plant is dark green, generally glabrous.

It is a herbaceous biennial plant that grows between 1.5–2.5 metres (5–8 ft) tall, with a smooth green hollow stem, usually spotted or streaked with red or purple on the lower half of the stem. All parts of the plant are hairless (glabrous). The leaves are 2-4-pinnate, finely divided and lacy, overall triangular in shape, up to 50 centimetres (20 in) long and 40 centimetres (16 in) broad. The flowers are small, white, clustered in umbels up to 10–15 centimetres (4–6 in) across. When crushed, the leaves and root emit a rank, unpleasant odour often compared to that of parsnips. It produces a large number of seeds that allow the plant to form thick stands in modified soils.

An attractive shrub or small tree, to 20 or 30 ft (6 or 10 m) high, the Pomegranate is much-branched, more or less spiny.

An extremely long-lived species, some specimens at Versailles are known to have survived two centuries. The leaves are evergreen or deciduous, opposite or in whorls of 5 or 6, short-stemmed, oblong-lanceolate, 3/8 to 4 in (1-10 cm) long and leathery. Showy flowers are home on the branch tips singly or as many as 5 in a cluster.

They are 1 1/4 in (3 cm) wide and characterized by the thick, tubular, red calyx having 5 to 8 fleshy, pointed sepals forming a vase from which emerge the 3 to 7 crinkled, red, white or variegated petals enclosing the numerous stamens. Nearly round, but crowned at the base by the prominent calyx, the fruit, 2 1/2 to 5 in (6.25-12.5 cm) wide, has a tough, leathery skin or rind, basically yellow more or less overlaid with light or deep pink or rich red.

The interior is separated by membranous walls and white spongy tissue (rag) into compartments packed with transparent sacs filled with tart, flavorful, fleshy, juicy, red, pink or whitish pulp (technically the aril). In each sac, there is one white or red, angular, soft or hard seed. The seeds represent about 52% of the weight of the whole fruit.

A small tree or shrub with a few spreading branches bearing alternate petiolate leaves which are ovate, acuminate, serrate, smooth, dark green on upper surface paler beneath and furnished with two glands at base.

Flowers in erect terminal racemes, scarcely as long as the leaf, the lower female, upper male, straw-coloured petals.

Fruit a smooth capsule of the size of a filbert, three cells, each containing a single seed; these seeds resemble castor beans in size and structure, oblong, rounded at the extremities with two faces; the kernel or endosperm is yellowish brown and abounds in oil.

The oil is obtained by expression from the seeds previously deprived of the shell.

The tree grows 5 to 8 metres (16 and a half feet to 26 feet) high and 4 to 6 metres (13 feet to 19 and a half feet) wide. The fruit is 7 to 12 centimetres (3 to 5 inches) long and 6 to 9 centimetres (2 to 3 and a half inches) across.

The immature fruit is green with dense grey-white pubescence, most of which rubs off before maturity in late autumn when the fruit changes colour to yellow with hard, strongly perfumed flesh. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 6–11 cm (2–4 in) long, with an entire margin and densely pubescent with fine white hairs. The flowers, produced in spring after the leaves, are white or pink, 5 cm (2 in) across, with five petals.

The Cinchona plants are large shrubs or small trees with evergreen foliage, growing 5–15 m (16–49 ft) in height. The leaves are opposite, rounded to lanceolate and 10–40 cm long. The flowers are white, pink or red, produced in terminal panicles. The fruit is a small capsule containing numerous seeds.

The stems are erect and shrubby, biennial, with creeping perennial roots. Flowers: Royal purple or bluish pink, showy, fragrant, 1 to 2 in. broad, loosely clustered at top of stem. Calyx sticky-hairy, deeply 5-parted, with long, pointed tips; corolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens and pistils very numerous.

Stem: 8 to 5 ft. high, erect, branched, shrubby, bristly, not prickly. 
Leaves: Alternate, peti-oled, 3 to 5 lobed, middle lobe largest, and all pointed; saw-edged lower leaves immense. 
Fruit: A depressed red berry, scarcely edible.
Preferred Habitat: Rocky woods, dells, shady roadsides.
Flowering Season: June - August.

It is a low shrub with large red flowers. The root, as found in commerce, consists of long, cylindrical pieces, varying in thickness from 1/4 to 1/2 inch or more (long Rhatany), or a short, thick portion, knotted, and as large as a man's fist (short, or stumpy Rhatany).

The bark of the root is thin, readily separable, rough and scaly; of a dark, reddish-brown colour outside, and bright brownish-red within. It breaks with a somewhat fibrous fracture, is tough and difficult to powder, and has a strong, purely astringent taste, tingeing the saliva red when chewed. The central woody portion is very hard and almost tasteless. Neither bark nor wood has any marked odour. As the virtues of Rhatany reside in the bark, the smaller pieces are preferable.

This plant grows from a large bulb which can be up to 20 cm wide and weigh a kilogram. Several bulbs may grow in a clump and are usually just beneath the surface of the soil. In the spring, each bulb produces a rosette of about ten leaves each up to a meter long. They are dark green in color and leathery in texture. They die away by fall, when the bulb produces a tall, narrow raceme of flowers. This inflorescence can reach 1.5 to 2 m in height. The flower is about 1.5 cm wide and has six tepals each with a dark stripe down the middle. The tepals are white, with the exception of those on the red-flowered form. The fruit is a capsule up to 1.2 cm long.

This leafless, cactus-like plant is a glaucous perennial growing 6 feet or more in height. Its ascending stems are fleshy and 4-angled, each side of the stem about 1 inch in width. The stems have spreading branches whose angles are clothed with divergent, horizontal stipules of a spinescent character taking the place of leaves. These are arranged in pairs and converge at the base into an ovate, somewhat triangular disc; above each pair of spines is a depressed spot indicative of a leaf-bud.

The flowers, which are borne on stalks on the summits of the branches, are 3 in number, 2 of them being borne on pedicles. The branches abound in a milky juice, which exudes and concretes on the surface of the plant when it is wounded.