May and June, perennial. Big. It was doubtless introduced,
and has become naturalized. The seeds are crested, and disposed
in a silique-like capsule. Named from the Greek for swallow,
as flowering when that bird appeared ; the English seems to
be a corruption of that word. Loudon.
Sanguinaria. L. 12. 1.
£. Canadensis. L. Bloodroot. Named from the red juice
of its root, from the Latin sanguis, blood ; bears a single
white flower on a stem 6 - 8 inches high, and sends up radical
leaves beautifully lobed, and glaucous underneath ; calyx falls off
with the full expansion of the flower; flowers in April, about dry
woods and hedges ; root horizontal, fleshy, zigzag, sending off
many radicles, whose bud at the end contains the plant of the
next year, a ca'reful dissection of which shows the flower and leaf,
and even the stamens, by a small magnifier. Strong medicinal
properties, emetic, cathartic. See Bigelow’s “ Medical Botany.”
P apaver. L . 12. 1. Poppy.
P. somniferum. L ., the common poppy of the gardens, cultivated
merely for ornament, as a general fact, in our country.
The well-known drug, opium, is obtained by incisions of the
stem and fruit-vessel; the white juice becomes dark-colored on
exposure to the air, and seems to contain three important substances.
The narcotic principle, which produces sleep, is called
morphia ; the stimulating power seems to depend on its vegetable
alkali, called narcotine ; it also contains meconic acid, called from
the Greek name of poppy, which is combined with tne morphia
as a vegetable alkali. As a medicine, in the hands of the skilful
physician, opium, and the preparations from it, are of the highest
consequence ; as a drug, used by the people to produce intemperance,
as in China, &c., its use becomes a tremendous evil.
Seeds oily and healthful; oil is procured from them for adulterating
olive oil. Lind. The plant is said to have been used
by Theophrastus, three hundred years before the Christian era,
for its power as an anodyne.
P. rhceas. L ., is a smaller plant possessing similar properties,
partially naturalized about some gardens and fields. This species
is so named from the Greek, to flow or fall, on account of its
fugacious flowers.
Noj’e . The following three orders were arranged with the
preceding by Jussieu, and, though associated with it in location,
it does not appear evident in what placé they should be fixed.
They have even been arranged in the class of Endogenæ. The
subject has been long debated, and not satisfactorily settled ; the
whole shows the imperfection of the Natural Method, and what
advances are still to be made in it.
ORDER 5. NYMPHÆACEÆ.
Calyx many-leafed, and corolla many-petaled, passing gradually
into each other ; stamens many, standing on a large fleshy disk,
and around the many-seeded ovarium or germ ; herbaceous, with
thick, cordate leaveé, or peltate, on a long foot-stalk growing from
a prostrate trunk, in still waters.
The few plants of this order are spread over the northern hemisphere.
The stems have a bitter, astringent principle, and the
plants are ranked among the sedatives, slightly narcotic. The
order is named from the first genus, a name from the Greek for
nymph.
Nymphæa. L. 12. 1.
JV*. odorata. Ait. White or Sweet Water Lily. A well-
known aquatic ; leaves round, heart-shaped, floating on the
water by their long petioles ; flowers on long, flexile foot-stalks,
with numerous white petals of a very sweet odor ; grows in
ponds, and flowers in July ; medicinal. See Bigelow’s u Medical
Botany.”
A beautiful variety of this, with petals of a rosy tint, is cultivated
at the Botanic Garden in Cambridge.
Nuphar. Sm. 12. 1. Yellow Water Lily.
JV". advena. Ait. Another aquatic, sending its bright-yellow
flowers and thick leaves to the surface ; petioles semicylindrical ;