It being the province of a botanist to establish permanently — 
the exact knowledge and distinction of any vegetable which he 
may discover, by means of a complete description, and to de- 
duce its properties and virtues from the affinity which the new 
vegetable may hold in class, order, and genus, with those already 
known: from the flavour, odour, colour, and habitat; from the 
most remarkable principles and substances ascertained by phar- 
maceutico-chemical analysis, and from information obtained from. 
the natives of the country where the plant spontaneously | grows; 
and finally from observations of his own, made with great care 
and attention; I believe that on my part the obligation of the 
botanist is in some measure discharged in this short dissertation, , 
with the methodical and historical description which I give of 
the plant, with a diagnosis of the characters found in the 
bark of its roots, and with an exposition of those substances 
and principles, found in it, by means of a chemical analysis 
performed (as the root is odorous) in the humid way, as pre- 
ferable, and less exposed than in the dry way to the disad- 
vantage of having its ‘principles decomposed or destroyed by 
fire; and of obtaining in the result, substances and combinations 
distinct from those which nature in her wisdom has deposited J in 
that part of the plant. : 
From the greater affinity which, m relation to other “pate 
hitherto known, the genus Monnina possesses with the genus 
Polygala,* it must be inferred that the virtues: of the Yallhoy. 
coincide with those of the roots of the Polygala ‘Senega of Lin- 
nzeus, and, like them, may serve as a deobstruent in obstructions 
of the lungs and other viscera, as a cure for dropsy, asthma, and 
* From the ‘uecimplele descriptions that authors have as yet given us, who ave treated of 
the Polygala Senega, it cannot be decided with certainty that this plant belongs to the genus , 
Monnina, But from the characters exhibited in the plates given of the former by Miller in his 
Dictionary, tom. 3. tab. 5, and by Count Castiglioni in his History of Foreign Ploats, yan tom. 3. 
