[f. TOOTH sb. + WORT.] Name given to several different plants.

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  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.

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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).

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1778.  G. White, Selborne, 3 July. Lathræa squammaria, tooth-wort.

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1905.  E. Step, Wild Flowers, I. 23. John Ray died exactly two hundred years ago, but the Toothwort still flourishes in Westhumble Lane [Mickleham].

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  † 2.  A name for Shepherd’s purse, Capsella Bursapastoris. Obs. rare.

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1597.  in Gerarde, Herbal, App.

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  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.

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1668.  Wilkins, Real Char., II. iv. § 5. 100. Dames Violet, Double Rocket Toothwort.

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1678.  Phillips (ed 4), Toothwort, a sort of Herb, called in Latin, Dentaria.

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1786.  Abercrombie, Arr. in Gard. Assist., 73. Dentaria, toothwort.

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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.

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  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.

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1760.  J. Lee, Introd. Bot., App. 330. Tooth-wort, Plumbago.

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1884.  Miller, Plant-n., Plumbago scandens, Devil’s-herb, or Tooth-wort, of the W. Indies.

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