8 HORTUS JAMAICEXSIS. adjiub 



inflectecl, separating the flowers; no corolla; stamina three, short, nnthers oh- 

 4ong anil furrowed; gernicn small; style long-; stigmis three tiipil!arv : Seed 

 single, three -sided, aciuiiinato, destitute of villus. There are many species of 

 this genus, for which see sedges, the specific name of adrue or jointed stalked 

 cyperus is 



AUTICULATUS. 



Jinicuf eijperoides creberrimc geniculatua, medullafarchis, aquaticus, 

 radice rubra, tiiberosa, odorata. Sloane, v. 1, p. 121, t. 81, f. 1. 



This rush has a tuberous, red, knobbed root, having a very grateful smell, like that 

 cf calamus aromaticus, covered with brown withered leaves, as well as the under part 

 of the stalk, like other rushes, and having severa' red strings going from the root of one 

 to that of another. The stalk is round, green, three feet high, smooth, having within 

 it very strong and frequent transverse partitions or membranes, making it jointed with 

 a pith between. At the top stand several brown chafty panicles, like those of cyperus 

 grasses, the small, long, spikes, being made up of several reddish scales, lying over 

 another on the same footstalks, all coming from the rushes top, as from a common 

 centre. This having a very graceful scented root, I question not but that it may bevery 

 successfully used in jjlace oi calamus aromaticus.'''' Sloane also mentions another plant, 

 j'uncus, cypernides. cuimo coinpresso striata, radice odorata tuherosa, capitulo rotunda 

 rompacto, a variety of the adrue, which he received from the Bay of Honiiuras; and 

 Jie was informed it grew upon the sand near Truxillo, where the Indians used it as a 

 cure for the belly-ache. Sloane. 



The roots arc esteemed cordial, diuretic, and cephalic, serviceable in the first stages 

 of the dropsy, resistors of poison, and expcllets of wind. They cure ill-scented 

 breaths, and are good in nephritic dicorders and colics. 



The roots, aromatic and stimulant, may be used in the place of Virginian snake root. 

 Infusion sfood in vomitings, fluxes, &c. Dancer, p. 387. 



The following account of therirtues of the adrue or anti-emetic grass is from the ma- 

 nuscript of Wr. Robert Cowan, member of the royal college of physicians in London : 

 " The discovery of itssurprising properties was made by Dr. Howell of Jamaica, in 

 ch.ecking and restraining black vomit in yellow tever. A strong decoction or infusion 

 of this plant is as much a specific in restraining vomiting in yello-iV fever, as the^Peru- 

 vian bark in cure of remittents. It gives out its virtues in water in decoction, or warni 

 infusion, to be taken when cold, when it assumes the colour of Madeira wine. It grows 

 by rivers and marshy lands, rises two and a half feet high, resembles the sedge or bull- 

 rush, the leaflike gi'ass or sedge of a large coarse kind, and has a ridge on the back, 

 which, when dry, cracks into two parts. Tlie rootc are much like the serpentaria or 

 snake root, fibrous, bushj-, and matted. The seeds are like grass, but placed in little 

 bushes or clusters at tlietop of the stalk. 'The first tea-cupful of the decoction represses 

 the vomiting, and the second or third cures. By experiments made on the use of the 

 different parts of the plant, it is foimd that the strongest is made b}' boiling the whole 

 plant, cut or sliced, roots, see Is, leaves, and stem, altogether. The quantity two 

 liandfuls in three pints boiled to the evaporation of one-third." 



The 



