COMMON NAMES. Carolina Pink or Worm Grass.
    MEDICINAL PART. The root.
    Description. -- This herbaceous, indigenous plant has a perennial, very fibrous, yellow root, which sends up several erect, smooth stems of purplish color, from six to twenty inches high. The leaves are opposite, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, acute, or acuminate, entire, and smooth. Flowers few in number and club-shaped. Fruit a double capsule.
    History. -- It inhabits the Southern States, and is seldom found north of the Potomac. It was used by the Indians as an anthelmintic before the discovery of America, and was formerly collected for the market by the Creeks and Cherokees in the northern part of Georgia, but since their removal the supply comes from the far Southwest.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an active and certain vermifuge, especially among children. Given alone it is very apt to produce various unpleasant symptoms, increased action of the heart, dizziness, etc. I extract from the root a resinous principle, to which I have given the name of Spigeliin, which has all of the virtues of the root, but does not produce any derangement. I employ the Spigeliin in my "Male Fern Vermifuge."  See page 469.