RUMEX ACETOSELLA

SHEEP SORREL

Description:  Natural Order, Polygonaceae.  Generic characteristics  as  in  rumex  crispus.   Low  plants,  with  annual sterna four to eight inches high, from perennial roots.   Leaves oval- lanceolate, blunt at the apex, halbert-eared at the base, especially the lower ones ; one to two and a half inches long.  Pleasantly acid, and often eaten by children.  Flowers dioecious, small, in slender panicled racemes; styles adherent to the angles of the ovaries.  Abundant in sandy soils and sterile fields, the fertile panicles turning reddish in summer.

Properties and Uses:  This herb is made into an extract, and this is used upon indolent ulcers and cancers, in the same manner as the extract of oxalis acetosella.  It forms a sharply stimulating preparation, usually too nearly caustic to be used alone; but when suitably modified by extract of celastrus, it is an agent of much power, and one that deserves attention.  Allusion was made to it at oxalis.