(From mercurius, quicksilver). Mercurial, or a preparation of mercury. But in obsolete authors, the atra bilis is also called the mercurial humour; and the diseases from this source have the same appellation. In botany it is the name for lapathum unctuosum folio triangulo, bli-thum, chenopodium, bonus Henricus Lin. Sp. Pl. 318, all good, English mercury, a plant with triangular leaves, covered underneath with a whitish unctuous meal: its stalks are striated hollow, partly erect and partly procumbent, bearing on the tops spikes of small imperfect flowers, each of which is followed by a small black seed, inclosed in the cup; perennial, grows in waste grounds, and flowers in August. The leaves arc mucilaginous, a little subsaline, and used as emollients in clysters and fomentations. The young shoots are eaten in spring as a gentle laxative and diuretic. See Raii Historia.

Mercurialis Aqua. See Beya.

Mercurialis fructicosa incana testiculata; marisicum, thelygonon, mercurialis tomentosa Lin. Sp. Pl. 1465. Children's mercury, is a garden plant, and used in Barbary against some female diseases.

Mebcurialis mas, mercurialis testiculata, spicata, and faemina. French mercury. It is the mercurialis annua Lin. Sp. Pl. 1465, var.α . and β hath smooth glossy leaves, and branched stalks. Each variety is annual, and grows wild in shady uncultivated grounds. The leaves have no remarkable smell, and very little taste; they are slightly mucilaginous, but seldom used.

Mercurialis mucilago. See Argentum vi-vcm.

Mercurialis; cynocrambe, canina brassica, persi-caria siliquosa, mercurialis montana, wild mercury, dog's mercury, mercurialis perennis Lin. Sp. Pl. 1465, is one of the poisonous plants found in Great Britain. The root is creeping, light coloured, and fibrous; the stalk erect, green, juicy, and unbranched. The leaves are oval, serrated, pointed at the extremity, placed in pairs opposite each other. The flowers grow at the tops of the stalks in thin slender spikes from the alae of the leaves, of a light green colour, and are male and female. The furrows of the germen receive a barren filament, terminated with a gland, marked with two dark coloured spots. It flowers early in the spring; is found in woods, shady places, and the banks of ditches; distinguished from the French mercury by being perennial, larger, with rough leaves, and the stalks, not branched.

In early spring it may be eaten with safety, dressed like spinach; but its acrimony is soon evolved, and it produces nausea, vomiting, and afterwards comatose symptoms. These ill effects are removed like those of poisonous mushrooms. See Amanita and Vene-nom.

Wilmer's Observations on Poisonous Vegetables.