quality, but the young flower-buds in some parts of Germany are pickled and sold for capers.

HELLEBORUS VIRIDIS. Green-flowered Hellebore. A drachm of the leaves reduced to powder is sometimes given to destroy

worms.

THALICTRUM FLAVUM.

dye a yellow colour.

Meadow Rue. The root and leaves will

Cattle are fond of this plant.

TROLLIUS EUROPŒUS. Globe-flower. The country people in Sweden strew their floors and pavements on holidays with the flowers, which have a pleasant smell, and are ornamental in gardens. Our northern poet makes the young laird wish to gather these flowers to weave a chaplet for his Katy's brow : Soon as the clear goodman of day,

Bends his morning draught of dew,
We'll gae to some burn-side to play,
And gather flowers to busk ye'r brow.
We'll 'pon the dasies on the green,

The Lucken Gowans frae the bog,
Between hands now and then we'll lean,

And sport upon the velvet fog.

Tea Table Miscellany of Allan Ramsay, in a song called,
The Young Laird and Edinburgh Katy,

MALVA SYLVESTRIS.

Order VII. Monodelphia.

Common Mallow. The whole plant is mucilaginous and emollient; a decoction of it, or an infusion of the flowers, is recommended as a pectoral, and good for the stone and gravel, and other complaints in the urinary passages; it is likewise given in clysters in the dysentery and tenesmus, and is used by way of cataplasm in inflammations: the ancients fed upon a species of mallow, though probably not this kind, as we learn from Horace :

Me pascunt olivæ,

Me Cichorea, levesq; malvæ. Lib. I. Ode xxx.

ALTHEA OFFICINALIS. Marsh Mallow. The roots and leaves have a mucilaginous quality, and are often used in a syrup or decoction as a balsamic pectoral for coughs and hoarsenesses, It is found also to be serviceable in nephritic complaints, and

the stranguary; and is used in cataplasms and fomenta tions against swellings. The root will turn water to a jelly.

Order VIII. Polyadelphia.

HYPERICUM ANDROSCEMUM.

Tutsan. It is a good vulnerary, the leaves readily healing any fresh wounds, whence it took the French name of Tutsan or Tout-sain, i. e. All-heal.

PERFORATUM. St. John's Wort. An oil or tincture of the flowers is esteemed a good vulnerary. The expressed juice or infusion of the same is reckoned good to destroy worms, to resolve coagulated blood, and to promote urine. The dried plant boiled in water with alum, dyes yarn of a yellow colour, and the Swades give a fine purple tinge to their spirituous liquors with the flowers.

The superstitious in Scotland carry this plant about them as a charm against the dire effects of witchcraft or enchantment. They also cure, or fancy they cure their ropy milk, which they suppose to be under some malignant influence, by putting this herb into it, and milking afresh upon it.

PINUS SYLVESTRIS.

Order IX. Monacia.

Scotch Fir. Few trees have been applied to more uses than this. The tallest and straightest are formed by nature for masts to our navy. The timber is resinous, durable, and applicable to numberless domestic purposes, such as flooring and wainscoting of rooms, making of beds, chests, tables, boxes, &c. From the trunk and branches of this, as well as most others of the pine tribe, tar and pitch is obtained. By incision, barras, Burgundy pitch, and turpentine, are acquired and prepared. The resinous roots are dug out of the ground in many parts of the Highlands, and, being divided into small splinters, are used by the inhabitants to burn instead of candles. At Loch-Broom, in Ross-shire, we observed that the fishermen made ropes of the inner bark; but hard necessity has taught the inhabitants of Sweden, Lapland, and Kamtschatka, to convert the same into bread. To effect this they, in the Spring season, make choice of the tallest and fairest trees, then stripping off carefully the outer bark, they collect the soft, white, succulent, interior bark, and dry it in

the shade. When they have occasion to use it, they first toast it at the fire, then grind, and, after steeping the flour in warm water, to take off the resinous taste, they make it into thin cakes, which are baked for use. On this strange food the poor inhabitants are sometimes constrained to live for a whole year; and, we are told, through custom, become at last even fond of it. Linnæus remarks, that this same barkbread will fatten swine; and humanity obliges us to wish, that men might never be reduced to the necessity of robbing them of such a food.

The interior bark, of which the above-mentioned bread is made, the Swedish boys frequently peel off the trees in the spring, and eat raw with greedy appetite.

From the cones of this tree is prepared a diuretic oil, like the oil of turpentine, and a resinous extract, which has similar virtues with the balsam of Peru.

An infusion or tea of the buds is highly commended as an antiscorbutic.

The farina, or yellow powder, of the male flowers is sometimes in the spring carried away by the winds, in such quantities, where the trees abound, as to alarm the ignorant with the notion of its raining brimstone.

The trees live to a great age; Linnæus affirms to 400 years.

Order X. Diacia.

TAXUS BACCATA. Yew-tree. The wood is red and veined, very hard and smooth, and much used by turners and cabinet-makers. The tree is very patient of the shears, and will assume almost any figure.

It has generally been supposed to have a poisonous quality. We have repeated accounts of horses and cows that have died by eating it; but whether the yew was the immediate cause of their death, is a matter of some doubt.

The berries are certainly not poisonous.

Our ancestors esteemed the wood of this tree as superior to any other for making bows. For this intent it was planted in almost every church yard, for the convenience and ready use of the several parishioners.

SECT. II. STAMINA INSERTED ON THE CALYX OR COROLLA.

PRUNUS PADUS. Bird-cherry. The fruit is black when ripe, and

of the size of grapes, of a nauseous taste, eaten in Sweden and Kamtschatka, but drank by way of infusion in brandy in Stotland.

AVIUM. Common Wild Cherry-tree. The fruit is black, and sometimes red, small, but sweet and agreeable to the taste, by fermentation making a grateful wine, and by distillation, bruised together with the stones, a strong spirit.

SPINOSA. Black-thorn or Sloe-tree. The bark of this shrub has been used by empirics to cure the ague. It will dyc woollen of a red colour. The juice of it, with vitriol or copperas, will make good ink; and the fruit will make a very grateful and fragrant wine.

PYRUS MALUS. Crab-apple. This tree in its wild state is armed with prickles, and the fruit is extremely sour, and frequently bitter. Its juice, or crab-vinegar, applied outwardly, is good to cure spasms, cramps, strains, &c.

The bark will dye woollen of a citron colour.

It is remarkable for its longevity: it is said that some trees in
Herefordshire have lived a thousand years.

The fruit, mixed with our cultivated apples, or even alone, if
thoroughly ripe, will make a sound masculine cyder.

SPIREA FILIPENDULA. Drop-wort. The root consists of many tubercles, suspended by, and terminated with thread-like fibres. Swine are fond of the roots; and Linnæus informs us, that in a scarcity of corn they have been eaten by men instead of bread.

ULMARIA. Meadow-sweet.

The whole plant is extremely

fragrant the common people in Sweden on holidays strew their floors with it.

A distilled water from the flowers has great efficacy in expelling the measles and small-pox. The whole plant has an astringent quality, and as such has been found useful in dysenteries, ruptures, and in taning of leather. Horses and cows do not affect it, but goats are very fond of it.

ROSA CANINA. Dog-rose. The pu'p of the fruit separated from the seeds, and mixed with wine and sugar, makes a jelly

much esteemed in some countries.

dyes black.

The bark with copperas

RUBUS IDÆUS. Raspberry-bush. In the isle of Skye the juice or a syrup of the fruit is frequently used as an agreeable acid for making of punch, instead of oranges or lemons. A distilled water from the fruit is cooling, and very beneficial in fevers. CASIUS. Dewberry. The fruit is blue when ripe, composed but of few Acini, and tasting like a mulberry. FRUTICOSUS. Common Bramble. and drying; a cataplasm made of them has been found service. able in the erysipelas. The juice of the berries, fermented, will make a tolerably good wine.

The leaves are astringent

SEXATILIS. Stone Bramble. The fruit is very acid alone, but eaten with sugar they make an agreeable dessert, and are esteemed antiscorbutic.

Russians ferment them with honey, and extract a potent spirit from them.

CHAMEMO BUS.

Cloudberries. This plant is diœcious above ground, but, according to a curious observation made by Dr. Solander, the roots of the male and female unite together under the earth, so as to render the plant truly monacious. The berry is the size of a mulberry, when ripe of an orange colour, consisting of ten or twelve large acini, of a waterish or subacid taste.

The Swedes and Norwegians esteem the berries to be an excel.
lent antiscorbutic: they preserve great quantities of them in
the autumn to make tarts, and other confections.
The Lap-
landers bruise and eat them as a delicious food in the milk of.
the rein deer; and to preserve them through the winter, they
bury them in snow, and at the return of spring find them as
fresh and good as when first gathered.

In the highlands of Scotland we saw them produced at table as a

dessert.

The roots consist of thick diameter, replete with a red

TORMENTILLA ERECTA. Septfoil. tubercles, an inch or more in juice, of an astringent quality. They are used in most of the western isles, and in the Orknies, for tanning of leather ; in which intention they are proved, by some late experiments, to be superior even to the oak-bark. They are first of all boiled in water, and the leather afterwards steeped in the