applied, and this without pain. Descourtils says that, in the Antilles, the natives prepare an excellent liquor from the fragrant covering of the fruit. H. sonora has received its specific name from the noise made by the wind whistling through its persistent involucels. The generic name commemorates Hernandez, sent to Mexico by Philip II. of Spain, and is said to have been imposed on these plants, which have large leaves and little flowers, in allusion to the great opportunities afforded to the naturalist, and the small returns he made to science.

(1687.) THYMELEACEE. Whether the Thymelæa of the ancients was, as some botanists assert, the Daphne Gnidium, or indeed any special plant, is a subject merely of conjecture. The derivation of the word, either from Ovμa, a sweet scent or sacrifice, or Ovμéλŋ, an altar, rather favors the idea that it was a

common name for fragrant woods, used as fuel in burnt offerings; and it is now applied as a collective term to a variety of shrubby plants, more or less shewy and ornamental, which, with two or three of the following types, are of little other economical importance than as fire-wood, and some of them are still employed in India, on account of their sweet smell, in religious services.

(1688.) The Thymelæacea are shrubs or small trees, very rarely herbaceous plants, with non-articulated branches, sometimes spiny, and the bark tenacious. The leaves are alternate (rarely opposite), simple, entire, and exstipulate.

The flowers are monoclinious (rarely dicecious), regular, and for the most part collected into axillary or terminal spikes, or fascicles, though sometimes solitary. The perianth is single, tubular, coloured, at least internally, with a cleft limb, and the lobes imbricate in æstivation, stamina definite and perigynous, with 2-celled anthers dehiscing lengthwise, either laterally or centrally. Occasionally

abortive stamens form petaloid scales in the faux of the perianth. The germen is free, simple, 1-celled, and 1-seeded.

The fruit is indehiscent, either utricular or drupaceous, the seed solitary and exalbuminous, or with the albumen very scanty. The embryo straight, radicle short, and cotyledons entire.

(1689.) Hence, differentially considered, the Thymelæaceæ are exalbuminous or subalbuminous Laurinæ, with exarillate seeds, free 1-celled, 1-seeded ovaries, and inferior imbricate perianthia.

(1690.) The genera associated to form this group are distributable into two subtypes, the Thymelide and Eleagnidæ.

(1691.) The Thymelidæ differ from the Eleagnidæ in having smooth leaves, the perianth coloured within and without, and not covering the fruit: the ovules pendulous, and the embryo inverted.

(1692.) The Eleagnida have scaly leaves, the perianth scaly without, and persistent, covering the fruit when ripe; and the ovules and the embryo both erect. (1693.) Thymelida. The spurge laurel and mezereon (Daphne Laureola and Mezereum), the lace-bark (Lagetta), and the leather-wood (Dirca), are the chief plants included in this subtype. They are all, with their allies, remarkable for their acrid, or rather caustic juices, so that their leaves and bark act as rubefaciants, and even as vesicatories. An ointment made from the spurge-laurel is by many persons preferred to savin for promoting the discharge from issues and setons, and to keep open blisters. The decoction of Mezereon is esteemed as an alterative, and with sarsaparilla it enters into the composition of the Lisbon, and other diet drinks. The tenacious barks of several genera have been made into cordage. From the liber of Daphne Bholua, a very soft kind of paper is manufactured in Nipal. The inner bark of the Lagetta lintearia is the vegetable-lace or Jamaica lace-bark; it consists of several layers, which may be separated and extended so as to form full ruffles, or may be pulled out into a silky web three or four feet wide, and of considerable length. Of this curious fabric our Charles II. had a cravat, frill, and ruffles, presented to him by the Governor of Jamaica.

(1694.) Passerina tinctoria affords a yellow dye, and is used as well as Daphne Tarton-raira, and D. Gnidium, in Languedoc and other parts of the south of Europe, to dye wool. The berries of this latter plant are the cocca Gnidia or grana Gnidia of medicine. They are cathartic, and according to Dioscorides about twenty serve for a dose for a man; but, notwithstanding their activity in the human prima viæ, they are fed on by birds with impunity, partridges especially are fond of them, and their flesh is in nowise affected by them as food.

The berries of D. Mezereon have an acrid pungent flavour, and are called wild-pepper in Siberia. Lepechin states that the Russian ladies use these berries, and also the sap of the plant, to rub their cheeks with, in order to give them a roseate hue, from the slight inflammation thus produced; and Falk affirms that he has seen the Tartar women do the same. Pallas and Villars add, that the berries are taken both in Siberia and in Dauphiny as cathartics, thirty being a dose, and that they are also given to infants as a remedy for hooping-cough. They are, however, dangerous if administered without much care, for even eight or ten have produced very serious effects. Linneus records a case in which death ensued from hæmoptysis, after a dose of a dozen Mezereon berries, and he likewise tells us that they are employed in Sweden to poison wolves and foxes. The leaves and berries

of Daphne Thymelæa and Tarton-raira are used, the former in Spain and the latter in Greece, for the same purposes as those of the Mezereon and Gnidium. Daphne Pontica is one of the plants which imparts its deleterious qualities to honey collected from its flowers; and is, with the Rhododendron Ponticum, believed to have been the cause of the fearful sickness that attacked the soldiers of Xenophon during the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand.

(1695.) ELEAGNIDE. The oleaster or wild-olive (Eleagnus), with the seabuckthorn (Hippophäe), form this small subtype, to which have been added two other genera, discovered since its segregation, viz. Shepherdia and Conuleum. These plants are destitute of the acrid properties of the Thymelide, and several of them afford eatable fruits. The Zingeyd of Persia is the fruit of E. orientalis, and in Nipal those of E. arborea and conferta are eaten by the natives. The acid berries of Hippophäe Rhamnoides are made into sauce, and sometimes also eaten alone, both in this country and in France. They are a favorite food with the Tartars, and the fishermen in the Gulf of Bothnia eat them with their fish. They are entirely harmless, although in Dauphiny and Spain they are considered deleterious: and Rousseau mentions that a lawyer, near Grenoble, cautioned him against them, as poisons, and was astonished that death did not ensue when he saw the naturalist eat so plentifully. Every part of the plant abounds in colouring matter, which is used as a yellow dye.

(1696.) PROTEACEE. Protea, so named on account of the variable forms of foliage prevailing among the numerous species, is the normal genus of this type, which is intermediate between the Thymelæacea and Santalaceæ, having like the former the germen free, and agreeing with the latter in the valvate æstivation of the perianth.

This type includes genera commemorative of several celebrated botanists, as Banksia, Lambertia, Grevillea, Persoonia, Dryandra, Hakea, Nivenia, Serruria, &c. But, although handsome ornamental garden plants, they seem scarcely worthy, from the little use they are of, to have been dedicated to such a constellation of great men, and given as representatives or memorials of their sterling talents.

(1697.) The Proteaceæ are all exotic trees and shrubs, growing abundantly at the Cape of Good Hope and in New Holland. Their branches are exarticulate, and the young shoots for the most part arranged in umbels. The leaves are exstipulate and alternate, opposite or whorled; persistent, simple, usually undivided, but sometimes toothed, cleft, and occasionally compound. In texture they are peculiarly hard and dry.

The flowers are monoclinious (rarely diclinious by abortion), the inflorescence variable, being sometimes spiciform, sometimes the flowers are disposed in loose panicles or corymbs, and at others collected into congested heads, which, when invested with the dry persistent bracteæ, resemble cones.

The perianth is 4-leaved, the sepals being distinct or cobering into a tube with a 4-cleft limb. The sepals are subcoriaceous, coloured, pubescent externally, and valvate in æstivation, (one genus alone, Franklandia, having them induplicate.) The stamina are definite (4, or by abortion less), opposite the lobes of the calyx, and generally exserted with very short filaments from just below the edges of the sepals. The anthers are adnate, 2-celled, linear, and dehisce longitudinally. The pollen is normally triangular, sometimes elliptic or

lunate, rarely spherical. Occasionally there are found 4 hypogynous scales or glands, or barren stamens, alternating with the lobes of the calyx and prefiguring a corolla. The germen is free, often stipulate, formed of a single carpel, and the style simple and terminal, and the ovules 1-2, or many.

The fruit is variable, either dry or succulent, and either dehiscent or indehiscent, 1-2 or more seeded. The seeds exalbuminous, often winged, and furnished with a chalaza. The embryo straight and white, with 2 or more cotyledons, the plumula scarcely visible, and the radicle inferior and short.

(1698.) Hence, selecting the chief differential and associating characters, the Proteaceae may be said to be exalbuminous Laurinæ, with an inferior 4-lobed valvate perianth, opposite definite stamens, definite erect ovules, and inferior radicles.

(1699.) The Proteacea are innoxious plants, devoid of any active properties, and applied to very few economical purposes. The bark of Protea grandiflora is, however, said to be slightly astringent, and to be employed as a remedy in diarrhoea at the Cape. P. mellifera secretes, in tolerable abundance, a honeylike or syrupy fluid, which is collected and taken as a demulcent for coughs; and Thunberg reports that the bark of P. speciosa is used for tanning leather. Guevina avellana, a Chilian species, according to Molina, bears seeds that resemble nuts, and are eatable; and those of Embothrium tinctorium yield a powder that forms a good pink dye. Some few of the arboreous Proteaceæ, such as several species of Rhopala, afford tolerable timber, but in general, beyond ornamental purposes, these plants are of little service to man except as fire-wood, for which they are used largely at the Cape of Good Hope.

(1700.) PENEAceɛ. Penaa, a genus, the affinities of which have been long considered questionable, is now made typical of a small group, that I cannot but refer, with Lindley, to the neighbourhood of Proteaceæ, notwithstanding it is usually placed near Epacridaceæ.

(1701.) The Penæaceæ are evergreen shrubs, natives of the Cape of Good Hope, with opposite or imbricate exstipulate leaves, inflorescence terminal or axillary, flowers monoclinious, the perianth usually of a red hue, inferior, salvershaped, with a 4-lobed or quadripartite limb, either valvate or imbricate in æstivation, and with two or more bracteæ at its base. The stamens are definite (4-8), exserted from the lower part of the tube of the calyx, the anthers 2-celled and introrse. The germen is superior, 4-celled, style simple, stigmata 4; ovules 1 or more, erect, or suspended, but with the foramen always next the placenta. The fruit is capsular and 4-celled, the seeds, like the ovules, either ascending or pendulous, the testa brittle, and the nucleus a solid mass with no distinction of albumen or embryo, the radicular end (?) next the hilum, which is fungous.

(1702.) Hence, differentially considered, the Penæacea are Laurinæ, with superior 4-celled ovaries, definite ovules, and homogeneous embryo.

(1703.) Small as is this type, indications may be observed which will probably in future lead to its subdivision, for in Penca the æstivation of the calyx is valvate; the flowers are tetrandrous, the connectivum fleshy, and the ovules pendulous; while in Geissoloma, the æstivation is imbricate, the stamens 8, the connectivum not fleshy, and the ovules erect.

These variations in the genera shew the type to be transitional, the imbricate æstivation and fleshy connectivum, and erect ovules of Penæa, associating it with

the Proteacea, while, by its valvate æstivation, obliterated connectivum, and pendulous ovule, Geissoloma is allied to the Santalacea.

(1704.) That peculiar resinoid gum soluble both in alcohol and water, and called sarcocol, is the produce of the Penæa sarcocolla and other species, natives of Ethiopia. It is an exudation found chiefly on the perianths of the flowers, and as collected for importation it is in small grains like sand, of a yellow or reddish colour, and very fragile. It is inodorous, has a sweetish taste when first put into the mouth, but when dissolved it becomes hot and acrid, and causes an abundant flow of saliva. It has long been known, and was formerly administered, as a cathartic; but Serapion condemned its internal use, as he believed its causticity to ulcerate the intestines. By the Greeks it was employed to stimulate ulcers and consolidate wounds, whence its name. It is now, however, but little used. Its active properties depend upon a principle discovered by Thompson, and named Sarcocolline. Dr. T. considers sarcocol to be closely allied to the saccharine matter of liquorice. It has also been said to be present in the pericarp of Acacia farnesiana. (Ricord.)

(1705.) SANTALACEE. The sandal-wood (Santalum), the tupelo (Nyssa), and the Poet's cassia (Osyris), which, with a few other genera, are associated to form this group, are distributable into three subtypes, that from the above named genera are called Osyrida, Nysside, and Santalida.

(1706.) The Santalacea, collectively considered, are trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants, with round or irregularly angled branches, alternate, nearly opposite leaves, sometimes small and resembling stipula, but which organs are absent. The flowers are small, united, (or by abortion polygamous and diœcious,) and collected into spikes, racemes, or sertula, seldom solitary. The perianth is