furze, where it was found many years ago by Mr. L. Wigg. It is now, we believe, extinct in that spot; nor was
any other-station for it known in either of our two most eastern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, till it was lately
found in a wood at Middleton in the latter county, by my friend D. E. Davy, Esq. of the-Grove, Yoxford. Even in
its favourite mountain woods of the North I have never seen it so abundant as it is in that spot. In Charlton Forest,
Sussex, it has been found by Mr. Borrer; and by means of other botanists several habitats are known in Yorkshire
Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham; and in Scotland it is even more plentiful, though not so much
so as P . rosea of English Botany. From the latter country our specimens were brought in a flowering state by
Mr Wiliiam Malcolm^ nurseryman at Kensington. Mr. Graves, who has cultivated it with considerable success,
observes that “ it thrives best "when planted in peat earth in an eastern aspect and under the shade-of trees. It
should be protected in winter with dead leaves, or moss, unless kept in a pot, which may then be put under a frame
during the winter months, or the plant will suffer, for want of the covering of snow, which in its native'forests shelters
it from the severity of the frost. During the flowering season it should have a plentiful supply of water, care being
taken to put into the bottom of the pot shreds of garden pots, in order that the superabundant moisture may be
carried off.” '
The orbicular form of the leaves of this species, though it has supplied its trivial name, will by no means afford
marks for a specific character; for the leaves are in this respect extremely variable, and those of P . minor, rosea,
and media are frequently as round as many of the most common varieties of rotundifolia. The flowers indeed supply
excellent points of discrimination, not only in the largeness of the corolla and the patent direction o f the petals;
but, what is of far more consequence, in the curved stamens, all directed upwards, so as entirely to conceal the
ovarium, together with the great length and remarkable curvature of the style.
Haller speaks of the medical properties of this plant, or rather o f all of the genus: “ Pyrolte omnes,” he says,
“ adstrin<mnt, et vulnerarim sunt, in decoctis et potioriibus; alque fomentis. Laudantur ad pectoris ulcera et
tubera chronica, medicis tamen vix note.” And since the days of Haller we learn from Mr. Pursh, that the Py-
rola (Chimaphila, P.) maculata is a plant in high esteem among the natives of Canada, who call it by the-name
of Sip-si-sewa. That gentleman has himself been witness of a successful cure, made by a decoction of this plant,
in a very severe case o f hysterics, and recommends it as eminently deserving the attention of physicians.
The anthers of this genus are highly curious, and the pores which on the first appearance of the stamens are at
the lower extremity become uppermost by the inflection of the filaments, whose insertion is just beneath the pores.
■The ovate scales which are seen on the upper part of the roots at the base of the footstalk of the leaves, and
upon the scapus, are precisely of the same nature as the bractete.