ASTRANTIA major.
Great Black Masterwort.
PENTANDRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Calyx of 5 leaf-like teeth. Fruit ob-
ovate, with 5 inflated plicate-dentate ridges;
vittse none. Umbel of few rays. General invo-
lucrum of few unequal, partial of numerous uniform
leaves.
Spec. Char. Leaves palmate ; lobes 5, partially
connate, subtrifid, doubly serrate. Partial invo-
lucrum scarcely longer than the flowers. Ridges
of fruit obtusely muricate.
Syn. Astrantia major. Linn. Bp. PI. ed. 2. 339.
DeC. Prod. v. 4. 86; FI. Fr. ed. 3. v. 4. 315.
Woods, Tourist’s FI. 142. Bm. Exot. Bot. v. 2.
23, t. 76 (not good). Bab. Man. \_ed. 5. 143].
Gaud. FI. Helv. v. 2. 299. Koch, Syn. FI. Germ,
ed. 2. 309. Reich. FI. Excurs. 483. Bischoff
in Gen. PL Germ. Illustr. fasc. 26 (excellent).
Bertol. FI. Ital. v. 3. 124.
A. nigra. L’Ob. Hist. 388. Scop. FI. Cam. ed. 2.
v. 1. 188.
A. nigrum, sive Veratrum nigrum Dioscoridis.
Ger. 828. Ger. Em. 978 (fig. reprint of L’Obel’s).
A NATIVE chiefly of the mountainous parts of more
southern Europe; cultivated in England by Gerarde in 1597,
but first observed as a wild plant in this country in Sidehill
Wood, above Stokesay Castle, Shropshire, by Mr. Arthur
Aikin, who presented a specimen to the Linnean Society in
1825. (See their Transactions, v. 15. p. 507-) In the same
place our specimens were gathered in July 1841, a direction
to it having been communicated by Mr. Daniel Sharpe. The
spot is perfectly sequestred; yet, the plant growing in large
separate patches along a portion only of the upper part of the
wood, the idea is suggested that it was introduced, though
very long ago, by human agency.
Plant densely tufted, several stems and bundles of root