Hedera Terrestris Pharm. Edinb. Hedera terrestris vulgaris C. B. Corona terra Lobel Chamaecissus; Chamaeclema. Glechoma hederacea Linn. Ground-ivy: a low, some-what hairy, creeping plant: with square stalks; roundish or kidney-shaped leaves set in pairs at the joints; in the bosoms of which come forth clusters of blue labiated flowers, whose upper lip is cloven and turned backwards. It is common in hedges and shady places, flowers from April to near the end of summer, and is generally found green all the winter.

(a) Ray, Historia plantarum, tom. ii. p. 1506.

This herb has a quick, bitterish, warm taste; and an aromatic but not very agreeable smell, which is in great measure dissipated by drying. It is supposed to be particularly ser-viceable in disorders of the bread, for clean sing and healing ulcerations in general, resolving coagulated juices, and purifying the blood. It has been customary to macerate the herb for a diet drink, in malt liquors; to which it readily communicates its virtue, and which it remarkably helps to fine down. It gives out its virtues also, together with a yellowish brown tincture, by infusion in water: on infpifTating the siltered liquor, only the unpleasant smell of the herb exhales, its more valuable parts remaining concentrated in the extract; which, on being tasted, impresses first a kind of sweetness, then a degree of bitterness, and soon after discovers a strong pungency. To rectified spirit of wine it yields its virtue only in part: the deep green spirituous tincture has but little of the subtile pungency of the watery infusion; and the brownish yellow extract, obtained by infpiffating the tincture, is much weaker in taste, as well as less in quantity, than the extract made with water.