the inventive fancy of Shakespeare attributes such extraordinary virtues in the person of Oberon king of the fairies, in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Act 2. Sc. 2.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell,

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk white, now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it Love in Idleness.

Fetch me that flower, the herb I shew'd thee once;
The juice of it, on sleeping eye-lids laid,

Will make or man or woman madly doat
Upon the next live creature that it sees.

BERBERIS VULGARIS. Barberry-bush. The fruit is cooling, and good to quench thirst in fevers, for which purpose it is generally made into a conserve.

The inner bark, steeped in white wine, is purgative, and has been found often to be very serviceable in the jaundice.

ALLIUM URSINUM. Ramsons. If cows happen to feed upon it, the

garlick odour will be communicated to the milk, butter, and cheese.

The inhabitants of Arran take an infusion of the leaves for the gravel with good success.

HYACINTHUS NON SCRIPTUS. Harebell. The Highlanders call

this plant in their language Fuath-muc, i. e. The aversion of Swine, and say that swine have a particular dislike to the roots. JUNCUS CONGLOMERATUS. Cluster-flowered Rush. This rush is used to make wicks for candles, and the pith of it to make toybaskets.

EFFUSUS.

Common Soft Rush. This is likewise used for making candle-wicks, and in some places for ropes and baskets.

Order II. Trigynia.

COLCHICUM AUTUMNALE. Meadow Saffron. An oxymel prepared from the roots, gathered in the beginning of the Summer, and administered in the quantity of six drachms to a boy, and an

ounce and a half to a man, by a drachm at a dose, three or four times a day, has, in several instances, been found to cure the dropsy, but in more has failed.

TRIGLOCHIN PALUSTRE. Arrow-headed Grass.

MARITIMUM. Sea-spiked Grass. Cattle are very

fond of both these.

RUMEX ACUTUS. Sharp-pointed Dock. A decoction of the root, taken internally, is recommended against the scurvy, and other cutaneous disorders.

AQUATICUS. Great Water Dock. The root in decoction or essence is esteemed an excellent antiscorbutic, and pulverized is reckoned a good dentifrice.

ACETOSA. Common Sorrel. The Laplanders boil a large quantity of the leaves in water, and mix the juice, when cold, in the milk of the rein-deers, which they esteem an agree able and wholesome food, and which will keep in a cool place for a long while.

The leaves are an agreeable acid, and are reckoned a good an tiscorbutic.

Order IV. Diadelphia.

FUMARIA OFFICINALIS. Officinal Fumitory. The plant has a bitter taste, and is used in medicine as a great purifier of the blood, in the decline, hypochondria, and scurvy. The great Boer haave frequently prescribed it in the black jaundice and bilious colics: a drachm of the extract or inspissated juice is the common dose.

Order VIII. Tetradynamia.

CRAMBE MARITIMA. Sea Cole-wort. The young leaves, covered up with sand and blanched while growing, are boiled and eaten as a great delicacy.

SUBULARIA AQUATICA. Awl-wort. It is very remarkable, that

this diminutive plant flowers under the water; whereas most other aquatic vegetables emerge from that element at the time of flowering. This power of emergence seeins however the less necessary in this plant, as the petals are scarcely ever seen to expand, but connive together, so as most probably to defend the impregnating Pollen from the injuries of the water.

ΨΟΣ. Τ.

THLASPI ARVENSE.

Treacle Mustard. The plant smells of garlick, and in countries where it abounds, is found often to communicate its disagreeable odour to the milk of cows that feed on it. The seeds abound with an oil, used formerly for the rheumatism and sciatica, but at present is out of practice. COCHLEARIA OFFICINALIS. Officinal Scurvy-grass. It has an acrid, bitter, and acid taste, and is highly recommended for the scurvy. There are instances of a whole ship's crew having been cured of that distemper by it; and as it abounds with acid salts, there can be no doubt but that it is a great resister of putrefaction. The best way of taking it is raw in a salad. It is also diuretic, and useful in dropsies. The Highlanders esteem it as a good stomachic.

LEPIDIUM LATIFOLIUM. Pepper-wort. The young leaves are eaten sometimes in salads; they have a pungent acrid taste, and are reckoned antiscorbutic.

CARDAMINE HIRSUTA. Hirsute Ladies-smock. The young leaves

are a good salad.

PRATENSIS.

Cuckow-flower. The leaves are very

acrid, and the flowers have lately had some repute in the cure of epileptic fits.

AMARA. Bitter-cress. The young leaves are acrid

and bitterish, but do not taste amiss in salads.

SISYMBRIUM NASTURTIUM. Water-cresses. The young leaves are

well known to furnish an agreeable salad, and have always been esteemed as an excellent antiscorbutic: they are said likewise to be beneficial in removing obstructions of the viscera, and in the jaundice.

ERYSIMUM ALLIARIA. Sauce-alone. The leaves were formerly in use for seasoning savoury dishes, but are at present little regarded, the different kinds of Allium being esteemed much more preferable.

An outward application of them is recommended by Boerhaave, and others, in gangreens and cancerous ulcers.

SINAPIS ARVENSIS. Wild Mustard. The young plants, before they

flower, are boiled and eaten as greens in several parts of England.

ALBA. White Mustard. The seminal leaves of this plant, with those of the Lepidium sativum Lin. afford a well-known salad in the spring.

SINAPIS NIGRA.

Common Mustard. The leaves in the spring are

in some parts of England boiled and eaten as greens.

The seeds are well known for culinary uses, and are sometimes used externally in medicine, where irritation is intended without blistering.

BRASSICA NAPUS.

Wild Navew. There is a variety of this, which has an esculent root, and which is cultivated in many parts of Europe for the sake of an oil which is pressed from the seeds.

Class VIII. Octandria.

EIGHT STAMINA.

Order I. Monogynia.

VACCINIUM MYRTILLUS. Whortle-berries, or Bill-berries. The berries have an astringent quality. In Arran and the western isles they are given in diarrhoeas and dysenteries with good effect.

The Ilighlanders frequently eat them in milk, which is a cool-
ing agreeable food, and sometimes they make them into tarts
and jellies, which last they mix with Whiskey to give it a
relish to strangers.

They dye a violet colour, but it requires to be fixed with alum.
The grous feed upon them in the autumn.

VITIS IDEA. Red Whortle-berries. The berries have an acid cooling quality, useful to quench the thirst in fevers. The Swedes are very fond of them made into the form of a rob or jelly, which they eat with their meat as an agreeable acid, proper to correct the animal alkali.

EPILOBIUM ANGUSTIFOLIUM. Rosebuy Willow-herb.

An infu

sion of the leaves of this plant has an intoxicating quality, as the inhabitants of Kamtschatka have learnt, who likewise eat the white young shoots, which creep under the ground, and brew a sort of ale from the dried pith of it.

The down of the seeds has lately been manufactured by mixing it with cotton or beaver's hair,

ERICA CINEREA. Fine-leaved Heath. Heath or Hather is applied to many œconomical purposes amongst the Highlanders: they frequently cover their houses with it instead of thatch, or else twist it into ropes, and bind down the thatch with them in a

kind of lattice-work in most of the Western isles they dye their yarn of a yellow colour, by boiling it in water with the green tops and flowers of this plant: in Rum, Skye, and the Long-Island, they frequently tan their leather in a strong decoction of it: formerly the young tops are said to have been used alone to brew a kind of ale, and even now it is reported that the inhabitants of Isla and Jura still continue to brew a very potable liquor by mixing two-thirds of the tops of hather to one-third of malt. This is not the only refreshment that hather affords: the hardy Highlanders frequently make their beds with it, laying the roots downwards, and the tops upwards; which, though not quite so soft and luxurious as beds of down, are altogether as refreshing to those who sleep on them, and perhaps much more healthy.

DAPHNE LAUREOLA. Spurge Laurel. It is extremely acrid and caustic, and therefore rarely used in the present practice.

Order III. Trigynia.

POLYGONIUM BISTORTA.

Great Bisiort.

The root has an acid

austere taste, and is a powerful astringent: the leaves are by some boiled in the spring, and eaten as greens.

VIVIPARUM. Small Bistort. The inhabitants of Kamtschatka, and sometimes the Norwegians, when pressed

with hunger, fecd upon the roots of this plant.

PERSICARIA. Spotted Bistort.

plant with alum dyes a yellow colour.

A decoction of the

HYDROPIPER. Water Pepper. It is a diuretic, but

seldom used. A decoction of it dyes a yellow colour.

Order V. Diadelphia.

POLYGALA VULGARIS. Milk-wort. It has a bitter taste, and has been found to possess much the same virtues as the Polygala Senega, from America. It purges without danger. It is also emetic and diuretic, and sometimes acts in the three different ways together. A spoonful of the decoction, made by boil ing an ounce of the herb in a pint of water till half is exhaled, has been found serviceable in pleurisies and fevers, by promoting a diaphoresis and expectoration; and three spoonsful of the same, taken once an hour, have proved beneficial