CIMICIFUGA, in botany: A genus of the polyandria order, belonging to the diœcia class of plants. The male calyx is almost pentaphyllous; there is no corolla; the stamina are 20 in number; the female calyx is almost pentaphyllous; no corolla; the stamina 20, and barren; the capsules from 4 to 7, polyspermous. Melserschmidius, in the His Siberica, gives it the following character and name: Cimicifuga fatida, with the leaves of the herb Christopher, bearing a thyrilis of yellow male flowers with a red villous seed, the feed-vessel in form of a horn. This whole plant so resembles the acæa racemosa, that it is difficult to distinguish them when not in flower; but in the fructification it greatly differs from it, the cimicifuga having four pistils, the acæa but one. Jacquin says, that it is a native of the Carpathian mountains. It has obtained the name of cimicifuga, or bugbane, both in Siberia and Tartary, from its property of driving away those insects; and the botanists of those parts of Europe which are infested by them, have long desired to naturalise it in their several countries. Gmelin mentions, that in Siberia the natives also use it as an evacuant in dropsy; and that its effects are violently emetic and drastic.