wound- HORTUS JAMAICENSIS. 307 



This plant was first introduced to Jamaica from Europe, and has since been cultivated in 

 most parts of the island, but thrives best in the mountains,whereitisoften observed to grow 

 as luxuriantly as in most provinces of Europe. It yields an active lixivial salt, an oil, 

 and a conserve, which are commonly kept in the shops ; and is a principal ingredient in 

 a compound water, to which it gives its name. It is a wholesome buter, and much used 

 as a stomachic, in vinus and other infusioons. Browne. Wormwood is a moderately 

 warm stomachic and corroborant. An infusion of the leaves, with the addition of fixed 

 alkaline salt, is a powerful diuretic in dropsical cases. It is used as a vermifuge ; for 

 which purpose it is both applied to the belly, and taken in pills made with crumb of 

 bread. This plant powerfully resists putrefaction, and is made a principal ingredient 

 in antiseptic fomentations The ashes of wormwood afforda more fine: alkaline salt 

 than most other vegetables excepting bean stalks, broom, and the larger trees; "Clothes 

 are preserved from moths by laying bundles of dried wormwood among them. The 

 wormwood, like all plants, is fullest of juice while in the shoot, but fullest of virtue 

 when they have ther seeds on them. 



WOUND-WORTH. AMF.LLUS. 



Cl. 19, or. 2. fyngenesia pohigamia superflua. NaT. or. Composite. 



Gen. CHAR. Calyx imbricate ; coroltets of the ray undivided ; down simple ; recep- 

 tacle chaffy. One species is a native of Jamaica. 



UMBELLATUS. UM BELLED. 



Solidago. Villosa incana ; Joins ovatis oppositis, caule assurgentt', 

 sub-nudo, tripartita ,- poi ibus sub-umbellatis. Browne, p. 320, t. 33, 

 f. 2. 

 Leaves opposite, three-nerved, downy underneath, flowers umbelled. 

 This hasan herbaceous upright, simple, round, hairy, stem, two feet high, or at most 

 two feet and a half; leaves at first radical (afterwards the stem is naked at bottom) peti- 

 oled, wedge-shaped at the base, somewhat decurrent and serrate, nerved, smooth, 

 dark'green, white and soft beneath ; upper stem leaves on short petioles, smaller. The 

 stem "towards the top is generally divided into three branches, each of which is snb- 

 divided into many small flower-branches, forming a sort of umbel. The umbelules 

 have from three to eight flowers, with linear leaflets, from two to four, under them. 

 Peduncles an inch long, each sustaining one large yellow flower ; scales of the calyx 

 'iisceolate, membranaceous, hoary ; hermaphrodite corollets fewer in the disk, funnel- 

 shaped, with a reflex border ; females in the ray numerous, linear, blunt, bifid; seeds 

 to all the flowers ob conical ; down sessile, simple, hairy ; receptacle hirsute not bristly. 

 It has the habit of tussilago, and would be of that genus if the down were stipitate, and 

 the receptacle naked. i&wartz. This beautiful and uncommon plant is a native of the 

 cooler woods and mountains ; its taste is acerb, and it should be a fine vulnerary ; it 

 leaves a sweetening on the palate, not common in plants of this class. The leaves are 

 pretty large, growing chiefly at the bottom of thes talk. Browne. It flowers in summer, 



Ximenia. See Seaside-Plum. 



Qq2 YAMS, 



