(4681.) PLUMBAGINIDE. The different species of Plumbago are remarkable for the acridity of their juices. One was used in ancient times as a stimulating application to remove opacity of the cornea, which disease was then called Plum

bum, and hence the present generic name. P. Europea, like other acrid plants, has been used to relieve toothach; and by the French it is called dentelaire, or toothwort. In decoction it has also been recommended as a stimulating wash to old and sluggish ulcers, and as a kind of potential cautery to cancers; but Sauvage de la Croix says, that a young woman, who had it applied, affirmed that the pain it occasioned was intolerable, and that she felt as if being "flayed alive." It is said to be a certain cure for the mange in dogs and horses, and, like the ranunculi, is sometimes used by beggars to ulcerate their skin. Plumbago rosea, the blister-root of Rumphius, as well as the bruised bark and root of P. Zeylanica and scandens, will raise vesications like cantharides; the latter, on account of its acridity, is called the Devil's wort in St. Domingo. P. Europea, administered internally in small doses, is said to be as effectual an emetic as ipecacuan.

(4682.) STATICIDE. The thrift (Armeria), and sea-lavender (Statice), are, like the Plumbagines, very ornamental plants; but they differ greatly from them in their properties. They are bitter, tonic, and astringent; and several have been found very serviceable medicines in diarrhoea and dysentery. Statice Caroliniania is said to be one of the most powerful astringents known. The root is the part employed, and in America it is much esteemed.

(4683.) GLOBULARIACEE. The Globularia, which form this type, are low shrubs, undershrubs, or perennial herbaceous plants, with roundish non-articulated branches, simple, entire, marcescent leaves, alternate or crowded, exstipulate, and nigrescent.

The inflorescence is terminal or axillary, capitulate, the receptacle being convex, pedunculate, paleaceous, and girded by a polyphyllous abbreviated involucrum. The flowers are irregular, seldom regular, and united.

The calyx is free, persistent, herbaceous, synsepalous, and bilabiate, the upper lip being trifid, the lower bifid; seldom regular, with a 5-cleft limb. The corolla is hypogynous, synpetalous, tubulose with an unequal limb, two-lipped, rarely unilabiate, the upper lip the smallest, bipartite or obsolete, the lower trifid and elongated; seldom regular. The torus is obsolete. The stamens 4, exserted from the upper part of the tube of the corolla, and alternate with its lobes, the axial or upper stamen being wanting, and the others somewhat didynamous. The filaments are free, capillary, and incurved in æstivation. The anthers reniform and versatile, 2-celled, the cells confluent into 1, and dehiscent lengthwise by chinks. The germen is free, 1-celled, with a solitary ovule, pendulous from an elongated podosperm. The style 1 and terminal, and the stigma simple or emarginate.

The fruit is utricular, small, and indehiscent; surmounted by the persistent style, and invested by the calyx. The seed solitary and pendulous, the albumen fleshy, the embryo straight and axile, the radicle superior, and about the length of the cotyledons, which are ovate.

(4884.) Hence, differentially considered, the Globulariacea are capitate Plantagine, with mostly irregular flowers; the stamens alternating with the lobes of the corolla, and often didynamous; the fruit superior, 1-celled, indehiscent, and monospermnous; and the seed pendulous, with fleshy albumen.

(4685.) The Globularia are reputed to possess bitter and cathartic powers, but are destitute of any especial acridity; although one species, G. Alypum, hus been supposed to be the aλvrov of Dioscorides, and hence described in the works of Lobel, Bauhin, and the older botanists, under the formidable title of "Herba vel Frutex terribilis." The Alypum of the ancients was probably a species of Euphorbia, for it is described as having very caustic juices, and their plant might merit the epithet terrible, but the one in question is no more to be dreaded than any other drastic cathartic. G. nudicaulis is also purgative; and G. vulgaris, which participates in the properties of both the preceding, is said by Lemery to have been employed as a resolvent and vulnerary.

(4686.) The Globulariæ differ so little from the Dipsacee in their general structure, that, were it not for their free superior germen, they might be associated immediately with them; and even as it is, considering that the germen in Dipsacea is sometimes scarcely inferior, and the peculiar circumstance of the ovarium being occasionally free, although the calyx is superior, it seems to be a debateable point as to whether they might not with propriety be admitted as a subtype. At all events, they shew the close connexion which exists between these types, and become another evident link in that beautiful chain of affinities which pervades the whole vegetable kingdom, associating and assimilating the most distant, and apparently the most discordant parts.

(4687.) The demonstration of the types and sections in which the genera comprehended in the order Syringales have been distributed and arranged being now concluded, it only remains to add the usual tabular conspectus of the whole.

1032

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE ROSARES.

(4688.) The Rosares form as it were the especial vegetation of the present epoch. Whatever may have been their relative proportions to the other tribes in different and distant eras, they constitute more than two-thirds of the now existing Flora. Their geographical range is therefore, as might have been expected, if not absolutely more extended than that of some of the foregoing classes, more general, and their distribution much more abundant, not only as compared with either of the others singly, but more so than the whole combined. The Rosares constitute, in fact, THE Flora of our times: other plants, such as the Ferns and the Zamias, with the southern Pines, may have predominated in former ages; and, from the proportion in which their fossil remains are found, it is not improbable that they did so. Others, such as the Selanthi, may increase their ratio hereafter; but, however this may be, certain it is, that these are the prevailing plants of this our day. For, although some of the preceding groups, as the Grasses and the Fungi, perhaps may equal them in the number of existing individuals, they are beyond comparison their inferiors in the numerical amount of forms specifically distinct. The Rosares quadruple the Gramina and Palmares combined; they count above fourfold the sum of all the agamic tribes, that is, the Fungi and Alga, with the Lichens, put together; they are about nineteen times as many as the Ferns, in their most comprehensive scope; upwards of twenty times as numerous as the Mosses; they are considerably more than 200 times as many as the Pinares; and, as to the remaining class, its numbers are so comparatively insignificant, that a proportional estimate would seem almost ridiculous. Such being the case, the local as well as the general distribution of the Rosares, that is, their stations and habitations, or topographical range, as well as their regional distribution, or prevalence in certain zones, and absence from certain districts; and furthermore, their statistical distribution, or the abundance in which they can be produced, and the ratio they bear to the other classes of plants in different climates, will comprehend a multitude of particulars, a host of curious facts connected with the soil and climate, and the meteorological condition of the various parts of the globe; facts, not only valuable to science, but subservient to the arts, and hence of importance to all men, whether they chiefly regard the comfort of their bodies or the culture of their minds: for upon such, still too often unobserved foundations, not only the manners and customs, but the habits of idleness or industry, the commercial pursuits, and not unfrequently the political rank of nations, in a great measure depend.

(4689.) The topographical distribution, as affording the elements of the more general views, as yielding the materials of the regional and statistical accounts, must of course be the first described, the special stations and habitations of the types in each order being separately considered; and then an estimate attempted of the general distribution of the whole.

QUERNEALES.

(4690.) QUERCINE. The Casuarinacea, with which this order opens, and by which it is connected with the Equisetacea of the Ferns, as well as to the Taxacea of the Pinares through Ephedra, (§ 1450,) are, like the Ephedra, in

general, inhabitants of cold and temperate regions; they are, however, only found in the southern hemisphere, their immediate associates, the Myricaceæ, representing them in similar climates of the northern, to which however these latter are not confined, as they occur almost equally in parallel latitudes on both sides of the equator.

(4691.) The Salicacea, or willows, have the most northern range of any of the arboreous rosares. Salix livida occurs in Lapland, S. herbacea in Iceland, S. polaris in Spitzbergen, and the north of Norway; and specimens of S. arctica were brought by Parry and his adventurous companions from the per-arctic regions, as the only representative there existing of the forest monarchs of more temperate climes, but still a tree, although attaining to the height of two or three inches only. The willows and poplars are, however, more prevalent in the temperate zones; and a few extend even towards the tropics, some being found in Greece, Egypt, Barbary, and even in Senegal, as well as in Mexico and Peru. (4692.) The Betulaceæ are also the plants of cold and temperate regions, but less extensive in their range than the Salicacea, either towards the equator or the poles: three species are found in Nepal, and one, Betula antarctica, in the island of Chiloe; but the majority are natives of the colder parts of the temperate zones of America, Europe, and Asia, especially of Lapland and Siberia, where vast forests are found, and where the afflictive birch, cursed by unlettered youth, supplies most of the necessities of man, and, as the beech in the silver age,

"Sellas, armaria, lectos

Et mensas dabat et lances et pocula :"

and hence there, like the olive-branch in more temperate climes, a birchen rod might be, not improperly, esteemed a symbol of amity and love.

(4693.) The Corylacea, including the oak, chesnut, beech, hazle, &c. are inhabitants of the temperate regions, both in the eastern and western hemispheres; less northern in their range, however, than either of the preceding types, and likewise less tolerant of heat; for, although common in the Levant, in the southern parts of Europe, and in the northern ones of Asia, they either desert the plains, and fly for refuge to the more moderate heat of the mountains, or degenerate in size, the oaks often becoming as it were bushes or dwarfish shrubs. These plants, although common in parallel latitudes of the Old and the New Worlds, are denizens chiefly of the northern hemisphere, being very rare in Paraguay and Chili, and unknown at the Cape of Good Hope.

(4894.) The Juglandacea, which might with some shew of reason be called resiniferons Corylacea, are, like them, the most prevalent in temperate latitudes. It is in North America that the bickories and walnuts are chiefly found, but some are natives of the more southern states, as Carolina and Georgia; while others are found in Greece, Persia, different parts of Asia Minor, and one in St. Domingo.

(4695.) Hence it would appear that, as a general rule, the Quercinæ are most prevalent in the frigid zone, or in the colder parts of the temperate regions; and although they have continual tendencies towards the tropics, those which are natives of warm latitudes are comparatively few in number.

(4696.) ULMINE. The elms are plants of the north temperate regions, but the genus Celtis extends from the northern parts of America to the tropics, being