Contrayerva

Contrayerva, a medicine once in much repute against low fevers, and as a mild stimulant and diaphoretic, also as efficacious against snake-bites, whence the Spanish name, consists of the root-stocks (rhizomes) of different species of Dorstenia, a tropical American plant of the natural order Artocarpaceæ. The genus is remarkable for the plane receptacle in which the numerous small flowers are depressed, the female flowers more deeply so.