430 On the Medical Properties of Lycopodium catharticum. 



common club-moss [Lycopodium clavatum), and to ascertain 

 how far some of our other native species may be endowed with 

 similar qualities. Three or four kinds are extremely frequent 

 on the mountains of Scotland and the north of England. It 

 should be ascertained too whether the active principles, if any, 

 reside in the foliage or in the seeds or spikes. 



My attention was first called to the South American Lyco- 

 podium by William Turner, Esq., our late Minister at Bogota, 

 where he most obligingly devoted some of the time which 

 could be spared from his more important duties to collecting- 

 seeds and specimens of the vegetable productions of that ex- 

 tremely rich botanical region, and which he has communicated 

 to me. Among those which arrived in the early part of this 

 year are fine specimens of the plant in question, and which I 

 soon discovered to be a new and very handsome species of Ly- 

 copodium, as the subjoined figure will show. They were ac- 

 companied with the following note : " Plants of ' el Jatun 

 condenado? which in the Inga language means the great 

 devil : this is another plant found in Asuay of the equator, 

 and whose medicinal virtues are only hitherto known to the 

 Indians. It has been discovered that it proves a remedy much 

 more efficacious than the Cugchimchullo* against leprosy ; and 

 it is stated that in fifteen days it cured a lady to whom an 

 Indian administered it from gratitude, and who had not re- 

 ceived relief from any other medicine." 



Shortly after, my valued friend Professor Wm. Jameson sent 

 me a collection of plants fromPillzhum, including specimens of 

 this very Lycopodium, with the remark, i( From the mountains 

 of Pillzhum; — it operates in a small dose as a violent purgative. 

 It has been administered as a remedy against elephantiasis, 

 and is known by the name of Jatun condenado. From the 

 violence of its operation it requires caution." 



This species I propose thus to characterize : 



Lycopodium catharticum. 

 (Plate XIV.) 

 Caule ascendente dichotomo, ramis (cum foliis) acutis, acute tetragonis 

 foliis arete quadrifariam imbricatis ovato-acuminatis rigidis carinatis 



* Ionidium parviflorum, of which see an account in ' Companion to the 

 Botanical Magazine', vol. i. p. 277. 



