{'13°) 
a foot in length, ovate, pointed, covered with a fhort fhining greyith 
Sustnd cauline leaves feflile, numerous, lanceolate, broad towards the 
bafe. "Flowers of a dull red, changing to a bluifh colour, and placed 
on flender peduncles, in fpikes. Segments of the calyx five, deeply 
divided. Corolla monopetalous, funnel-fhaped: tube cylindrical, 
thick, half the length of the calyx: limb concave, cut into five 
roundith fegments; neCtary confifting of five purple fcales, clofing 
together, and inferted at the mouth of the tube. . Filaments five, 
very fhort. Antherz oblong, green. Germens four, fmooth, of a 
yellowifh green colour, fupporting a tapering ftyle, terminated by a 
blunt emarginated ftigma. Capfules four, roundith, rough. Seeds 
folitary, ovate, gibbous, pointed, {mooth. 
It is common in this country, and ufually found in watte grounds, » 
gr fides of roads, and flowers in June and July. 
Hounds-tongue, thus named from the fhape of the leaves, like moft 
of the other plants of this natural order, is fucculent, and fomewhat 
mucilaginous, efpecially its root, which, "for medicinal purpofes, has 
-een generally prefered to the leaves. ‘Fhe tafte of the plant is 
bitterifh, and its fmell is difagreeable, refembling that. of mice. 
Cynogloffum i is reported to be deleterious, and the dingy lurid ap-" 
bag ke of its leaves, peculiar to poifonous: herbs. of the narcotic 
ind, feems to favour the opinion ; nor are fa&ts wanting to confirm 
400A relation 4s given of a whole family at Oxford, who, by 
miftake, ate the boiled leaves.of this plant for thofe of comfrey: foon 
afterwards they were all feized with vomiting, ftupor, fleepinefs, &c. 
which fymptoms continued alternately for almoft forty hours, and 
with fuch feverity, that one perfon died.* But what degree of nar- 
cotic power Hounds-tongue poffefles, or to what quantity it may be 
‘fafely employed as a medicine, experience has not yet determine 
The pil. de cynogloffo~ of the Wirtemburg and Danifh Pharfhaco- 
peeias contain fo {mall a proportion .of this root, that their com- 
mon ufe cannot be confidered as affording fufficient proof of its 
innocence.. Ray however informs us, that Dr. Hulfe frequently 
® Vide Morifon Hift. Oxon. iii. . 450. Haller alfo, (Hi if. Stirp. Helv. me 587%)" 
-ecites a fimilar inftance, icntidnat: y Dr. Blair; but the plant ufed:does not appear to- 
have been the cynogloffum, See Blair’s Mifcellanesus Obfervations, pe 55« 
No, 2.—Part II, Doe a pee. 
