HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



S3 



over the island. Fennant, in his second tour in 

 Scotland, 1769, mentions having seen large quantities 

 of rhubarb being cultivated on the wild tracts of 

 that country by way of trial to see if it would succeed 

 as well there as in manured soils. 



Mr. Charles Bryant, of Norwich, gives an interesting 

 paper in the "Gentleman's Magazine," 1766, p. 444, 

 on a plant of R. palmatum, grown in his garden in 

 Magdnlen Street. After giving a botanical description 

 of it, he proceeds to say that about the end of May 

 the flowers were almost all blown to the very top of 

 the flower-stem, and the whole consummated a 

 scene which not only merited the inspection of the 

 curious botanist, but gave delight to the delicate eye 

 of the most luxurious florist. The seed that pro- 

 duced this plant was sown in the open ground in the 

 botanic garden here (Norwich), April, 1763, where it 

 stood and flourished till November, 1765, when it 

 was taken up. A piece of its root came off, which 

 was copiously stored with a fine thickish saffron- 

 coloured juice of a very agreeable aroma to smell, 

 so volatile that it scented the whole garden. Half- 

 an-ounce of this fresh root, thinly sliced and steeped 

 twenty-four hours in half-a-pint of gin, made a most 

 agreeable sparkling saffron-coloured tincture, about 

 half a gill of which, taken upon an empty stomach, 

 was found a very good cordial. 



R. rhaponticum was largely cultivated for me- 

 dicinal purposes at Banbury, Oxfordshire, in 1 777? 

 by Mr. Hayward, who was rewarded by the Society 

 of Arts in 1 789 with a silver, and in 1 794 with a gold, 

 medal for the excellency of the drug he produced. 

 The same society also presented Sir W. Fordyce a 

 gold medal for raising rhubarb from seeds in 1792. 



It was not, however, until the beginning of the 

 present century that the stalks of rhubarb became an 

 article of commercial importance in the London and 

 other vegetable markets in the kingdom. About 

 1810, Mr. Myatt, of Deptford, sent two of his sons to 

 the Borough market with five bunches of rhubarb 

 stalks, of which they only sold three, people not 

 liking what they called physic pies. Notwithstanding, 

 Myatt continued its cultivation. As he predicted, it 

 soon became a favourite ; and now hundreds of tons' 

 weight of rhubarb are sold in Covent Garden in the 

 course of the year, and what amount in other markets 

 all over the country it is impossible to calculate. 



The various uses of this plant in the kitchen de- 

 partment is well known. The petioles in the spring 

 and early summer are employed in tarts, &c, and 

 when the leaf stalks are too old for cooking, the 

 express juice from them is manufactured into a wine 

 closely resembling champagne ; indeed, much of the 

 common champagne drunk in this country is often 

 nothing more than a preparation from the stalks of 

 rhubarb and the fruit of the gooseberry. The large 

 globular pouch of unopened flowers when cooked as 

 rhubarb form a dish of great delicacy. Its chemical 

 composition is very complicated, and chemists have 



failed to discover any peculiar principle in the drug 

 which fully accounts for its purgative properties. 

 The analyses of Schlossberger and Dbpping discovered 

 a variety of new principles in it, among which was 

 chrysophanic acid, a beautiful yellow substance emit- 

 ting yellow vapours when heated, soluble in alcohol, 

 its alkaline solution changing by evaporation to a 

 violet and then to a blue. Magnificent purples also 

 are obtained from the yellow colouring matter pro- 

 duced by heating rhubarb with nitric acid and then 

 with alkalies, and it has been proposed to apply 

 these, called ery those in the arts, as a dry stuff.* 

 Bryant tells us a decoction made from the fresh roots 

 of rhubarb is an excellent antiscorbutic, and in this 

 respect is no way excelled, if equalled, by a decoction 

 of the so much celebrated water dock, Rumex\hy- 

 drolapatJutm, which is still in the present day taken 

 for scorbutic diseases by the rustics in the Broad 

 districts of the eastern counties. The poor in some 

 parts of Scotland are said to apply heated rhubarb 

 leaves to parts affected by rheumatism, which they say 

 gives ease to the pain. The leaves are said to be used 

 in the fabrication of fictitious cigars and tobacco. 



To the botanical microscopist the rhubarb supplies 

 excellent specimens of spiral fibrous structures, as 

 spiral annular and reticulated vessels and ducts, the 

 petioles, leaves, and roots contain bundles of stellate 

 raphides, oxalate of lime (which gives a grittiness to 

 the drug), which make beautiful objects for polarized 

 light. The original species of R. rhapouticum, un- 

 dulatum, and R. palmatum have now been super- 

 seded in our gardens by hybrid varieties possessing 

 the merits of larger size, delicacy in texture, and 

 coming earlier into use. 



Rheum officinale, from which the drug is obtained, 

 was first grown in this country by the late Daniel 

 Ilanbury, F.R.S., who sent specimens to Mr. Usher, 

 of Banbury, where it is now being cultivated for 

 medicinal uses. This species is a native of the south- 

 east of Tibet. Some species of rhubarb are highly 

 ornamental in many situations in pleasure grounds, 

 &c, their luxuriant foliage and tall elegant spikes 

 and flowers contrasting so singularly with most of our 

 native plants. The generic name rheum is derived 

 from rha, the ancient name of the river Volga, 

 from which locality it is supposed the Greeks first 

 received it. 



Field Mouse and Bees.— I keep several hives of 

 bees, and have placed pieces of perforated zinc about 

 three-quarters of an inch broad at the mouth or door of 

 each hive to prevent vermin, but the other day on 

 going to look after the bees, I found a field mouse had 

 entangled itself in the zinc in coming out of the hive ; 

 it was dead, and appears caught by its hind quarters, 

 and I suppose stung to death by the bees. Is not 

 this a very curious circumstance? — J. Lloyd Phelps. 



* See Ripley and Dane, " American Cyclopaedia." 



