Some of the Umbellifere: have poisonous or narcotic properties. The first in this list is the Hemlock (Conium maculatum). Itis a common plant on the road-side, on rubbish heaps, in burial-grounds, and in damp shaded places in the neighbourhood of habitations. _ Its root is white and spindle-shaped. Its straight branching herbaceous stem is from a yard to six feet high; it is smooth, that is to say, without hairs, cylindrical, glaucous, slightly fluted, and 18 spotted with marks of a deep purple colour. It has very large, alternate, deeply-cut, compound leaves, with profoundly dentate lengthened folioles; its flowers are small, white, and di: seg terminal umbels, consisting of from ten to twelve rays. Its petals are almost equal, sessile, and somewhat heart-shaped. Upon each of the two lateral portions of the fruit are five projec‘ing crenulated — ribs, which give it the appearance of being all covered with small asperities, or rotund tubercles. Any part of the Hemlock, wes -erushed between the fingers, exhales a fetid and disagreeable —

odour. It is well known that this plant constitutes a violent poison to man, and still more so to animals. The proper antidote to poisoning by Hemlock is to provoke vomiting, followed by administering tonic drinks. The poisonous properties of Hemlock have been known from the most ancient times; Socrates and Phocion were recompensed for the services they had rendered to the Greeks by having the choice of drinking the juice of this plant, or the dagger.

The Water Hemlock, or Cowbane (Cicuta bho is a still more active and violent poison than the Common ock. It is happily very rare; it grows on the banks of ponds at ditches, and in turfy marshes. Lastly, we must mention the thusa cynapium, or Little Hemlock, which is commonly found in cultivated places. In kitchen gardens this plant may easily be mistaken for Parsley, which it very much resembles when young and imperfectly developed. It may be distinguished from this potherb by the following characteristics:—The leaves of the Parsley are divided twice; its folioles broad and divided into three sub-cuniform and dentated lobes; those of the Little Hemlock are divided three times, its folioles are more numerous, straighter, sharp-pointed, deeply-cut, and dentated. Besides, the odour of the Parsley is agreeable, refreshing, and aromatic; whilst that of the Little Hemlock, like the others, is nauseous and fetid. If the two plants are in flower they will be distinguished at the first glance, for the flowers of the Parsley are yellowish, whilst those of the Hemlock are white. The stem of these plants also present different characteristics: that of the Little Hemlock is almost smooth, the lower part reddish, and the whole slightly tinged with red; the stem of our aromatic vegetable on the contrary is channelled, and green.

The Araiace® are trees and shrubs of the tropics, and of their borders in both hemispheres, especially in the Western, where they are plentiful. Adoxa maschatellina, and the Ivy (Hedera helix), — are the only plants of the order indigenous to the British Islands; the former is distinguished by its slightly musky odour, and its greenish-yellow flowers, which grow in woods and shady places. The Ivy is universally diffused, its habitat woods, hedges, on old

buildings and rocks, or trunks of trees, on which its coriaceous evergreen leaves and clinging and trailing branches form a prominent object. Some strange confusion has arisen, as we learn from the new edition of Sowerby’s Botany, between the Ivy and the _ Yew, in the writings of the poets, which Dr. Prior explains thus: “The Chanecpetys of Pliny, as we learn from Parkinson, was called in English, Ground Pine and Ground Ivie, after the Latin word Jva. But the name Ground Ivy had been assigned to another plant which was called in Latin, Hedera terrestris, and thus Ivy and Hedera came to be regarded as equivalent terms. But there was again another plant which was also called Hedera terrestris, viz., the creeping form of the Ivy (Hedera helix), and as Ivy ha teas equivalent to Hedera in the former case, so it did in this too, and eventually was appropriated to the full-grown evergreen shrub so well known. The botanical names of the Yew are so completely confused by the older botanists with those of the Ivy, that, dissimilar as are the trees, there can be no doubt that the origin of their names is identical.”

The root of Panax quinguefolium, a species belonging to this order, furnishes a drug much used by the Chinese under the name of Gingseng; and P. fruticosus, and P. cochleatus, natives of the Moluccas, are used as aromatic medicines by native ee in the East. The Cornace® are found all over the iecilpesale parts of Europe and America. Some of them, as Cornacea floritta, sericea, and circinata, are said to Possess tonic properties of a high order. The Cornel, or Dogwood, is a tree sometimes seen in our ~ hedges, and cultivated in our plantations; and the Cornelian Cherry (Cornus mascula) is common on the Continent, where its little clusters of starry yellow flowers are the earliest harbingers of spring. The Hamametrpacem, or Welsh Hazels, are found in N “ America, Japan, China, Central Asia, and South Africa; its most attractive member, the genus Rhodiola, “ whose great involucral leaves,” says Dr. Lindley, “ give quite a new aspect to the order, and points at an affinity of some kind with Liquidambars.” The Brunontace2 are, with the exception of one species Sanna at the Cape of Good Hope, all natives of Australia,

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where they are found in great abundance; but species of Scevola are also found in the Moluccas. Brunonia ae is an interesting fragrant Australian perennia.

ASARALS. Epigynous exogens, with monochlamydeous flowers, and small embryo lying in a large quantity of albumen, which Dr. Lindley places at the end of his system, but acknowledges the position to be anomalous as respects their woody structure, the peculiarity of their trimerous flowers, and inferior ovary, abounding in ovules, which have no parallel near where they are placed. Endlicher, on the other hand, places them with his TerMINALIACEx and NrEPENTHACE®.

Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants;leaves alternate, rarely opposite, rarely unisexual by abortion,arrangedins suns eresocian; pore | opine wi ens four or five, opposite the segments of. the perianth; anthers opening longitudinally; fruit one-seeded, nutlike, undslightly fleshy.

Trees, shrubs, under-shrubs, or herbaceous plants, with opposit entire leaves, veinless, eer. non-stipulate; flowers hermaphrodite; calyx tubular., adherent to theovary, with free entire peat petals CCCII. Loranthacee. four to eight, b equal in number; ovary inferior; anthers turned inwards.

Shrubs, for the most part parasitical. with simple opposite ore \ — pe jan veinl penathick, and leathery; seston 8unisexual, nicles; nth erent with the ovary, having three toi]CCCIII. Viscacee. ikes or pan five rfl triangular divisions, gag in estivation; pin ae eq afte,e division e@ perianth; ovary inferior; fruit fleshy, one-erbaceous plants or shrubs, the latter often climbing; leaves aterant vg and stalked, often beseong Aone ‘amen the { »wers hermaphrodite; calyx tubular; stamons six CIV. Aristolochiaceee. to twelve, sinetie the base of the er My ovary inferior, six, ec ~ rarely three or four-celled; ovules i fruit a capsuleor a dry, with three, four, or six many-seededc

The SanraLace&,. or add veth, are found in Europe and North America as humble weeds, but in Australia, the East Indies, and the South Sea Islands, they expand into large shrubs or small trees, as Santalum album. This tree is chiefly valuable for its wood, which is hard, heavy, admits of a high polish, and yields a fine perfume; qualities which recommend it for all kinds of fancy furniture and boxes. It is also burnt in temples, as incense, its fragrant odour being due to an essential oil said to be heavier than water. The LoranrHace# are natives of the tropics, both of Asia and America, but rare in Africa, where, however, the parasitical genera are found hanging in clusters from the trees on which they grow. Their eomemy presents some very curious phenomena. In Viscum, LL

the Mistletoe, according to Decaisne, the ovule does not appear till three months after the pollen has taken effect. Griffiths, who has also minutely studied Loranthus, states that the ripe seeds adhere - firmly to the substance on which they are applied, by means of their viscid coating, which hardens into a transparent glue, and in two or three days after application the radicle curves towards its support, becoming enlarged and flattened as soon as it reaches it. By degrees a union is formed between the woody system of the parasite and stock, the fibres of the sucker-like root of the former expanding on the wood of the latter in the form of a bird’s foot. Up to this time the parasite has been nourished by its own albumen, but as soon as it has acquired the height of one or two inches a lateral shoot is sent out, which adheres to the stock by means of run to a considerable which frequently productions, sucker-like distance, covering the tree with parasites. _ - the order, draws a dis- studied carefully Mr. Myers, who has tinction between Loranthus and Viscum. The former distinguished crimson flowers, with length- dichlamydeous, by its large, showy, ened stamens, and an ovary containing a solitary ovule, suspended from the summit of a cell, with a large fleshy cotyledon. Viscim, monochlamydeous on the contrary, having small, pale, diccious,

ttReee= flowers, with stamens sessile, or nearly so, different in structure, with dissimilar pollen; a unilocular, turbinate ovarium, with __ thrge ovules attached to a free central placenta. On these grounds he founds the new order Viscacz.%, or Mistletoe.

The Mistletoe is supposed to be propagated by birds, especially by the Fieldfare and Misselthrush, which feed on the berries. The mode in which the propagation of Myzodendron is effected is also | clearly demonstrated by Dr. Hooker. Here the fruit is provided to the pappus of the Com- analogous processes, with long, feathery positeze, which floats them in the air, and afterwards assists to hold — them on to the branches while the radicle insinuates itself into the plant. The genera of the order are very limited: Viscum and Arceuthobium, which are confined to Europe;Myzodendron and Lepidoceras to. the southern parts of Chili; Eubrachion to the banks of the Uruguay; and Phoradendron, numerous in species, over the tropical regions of the Old and which is disseminated oe New World.

The ArisToLocHiace® are common in tropical America, sparingly in North America, Europe, and Siberia, and in small numbers in India. ‘Two species are said to be British plants, but the rarest of our reputed species, and probably an accidental importation. Aristolochia blematitis is recorded as being found growing on old walls, &c., near Spittal, in Lincolnshire.

The distinguishing characteristic of the order resides in the flowers, which have no corolla, and are constantly divided into three segments. The stamens have the same ternary characters, and the cells of the fruit are three or six, always adherent to the calyx. The arrangement of the wood is also peculiar, their stems being composed of longitudinal plates, surrounded by a central pith, with an exterior bark; but these plates are not placed in concentric circles, as in other exogenous plants, but continue to grow, uniformly and uiidercipisdly: as long as the plant lives. The most remarkable species are found in tropical America, where the gigantic size and grotesque appearance of their flowers excite the wonder of the traveller; of these, A. cymbifera, the border of whose calyx resembles one of the lappels of a Norman woman’s cap, measures seven or eight inches in length; while the flowers of A. cordiflora and A. gigantea are from fifteen to sixteen inches across. They are generally tonic and stimulating, and several of — them are used in medicine.

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