[f. TOOTH sb. + WORT.] Name given to several different plants.
1. Lathræa squamaria (N.O. Orobanchacæ), a leafless fleshy herb, parasitic on the roots of hazel and other trees, bearing a double row of flesh-colored drooping flowers, and having tooth-like scales upon the root-stock.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, III. clxiii. 1386. Great Toothwoorth, or Clownes Lungwoort in forme like vnto Orobanche, or the Broome Rape, hauing a tender, thicke, tuberous bodie, consisting as it were of scales like teeth (whereof it tooke his name).
1778. G. White, Selborne, 3 July. Lathræa squammaria, tooth-wort.
1905. E. Step, Wild Flowers, I. 23. John Ray died exactly two hundred years ago, but the Toothwort still flourishes in Westhumble Lane [Mickleham].
† 2. A name for Shepherds purse, Capsella Bursapastoris. Obs. rare.
1597. in Gerarde, Herbal, App.
3. A plant of the genus Dentaria (N.O. Cruciferæ), characterized by tooth-like projections upon the creeping root-stock; esp. the British species D. bulbifera, occurring locally in woods; also called coralwort.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. iv. § 5. 100. Dames Violet, Double Rocket Toothwort.
1678. Phillips (ed 4), Toothwort, a sort of Herb, called in Latin, Dentaria.
1786. Abercrombie, Arr. in Gard. Assist., 73. Dentaria, toothwort.
1866. Treas. Bot., 393/2. Closely allied to Cardamine, from which it differs in having broad seed-stalks, and in its creeping roots being singularly toothed; hence the systematic name [Dentaria], and the English one of Toothwort.
4. A name for Plumbago europæa and the Central American and West Indian P. scandens, whose pungent leaves and roots are used as a remedy for toothache.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., App. 330. Tooth-wort, Plumbago.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Plumbago scandens, Devils-herb, or Tooth-wort, of the W. Indies.