92 FAMILY HERBAL. 



The CosTus Plant. Cosius 



AN Indian plant, which bears two kinds of stalkg, 

 one for the leaves^ and the oth^r for the flowers and 

 seeds ; these both rise from the same root, and oftea 

 near one another. 



The leaf-stalks are four feet high, thick, hollow, 

 round, upright, and of a reddish colour. 



The leaves are like those of the reed kind, long^ 

 narrow, and pointed at the edges, and thej are of 

 a bluish green colour. The stalks which bear the 

 flowers, are eight inches high, tender, ^oft, round, 

 and as it were scaly. The flowers are small and 

 reddish, and they stand in a kind of spikes, inter- 

 mixed with a great quantity of scaly leaves. 



The root is the only part used ; it is kept by our 

 druggists ; it is oblong and irregularly shaped. Ilia 



a very good and safe diuretic, it always operates 

 that way, sometimes also by sweat, and it opens 

 obstructions of the viscera. But unless it be new 

 and firm, it has no virtue. 



The Cotton Tree. Gossi/piu7n sive xyJon, 



A SMALL shrub, with brittle and numerous 

 branches, and jellow flowers : it does not grow 

 more than four feet high ; the leaves are large, and 

 divided each into five parts ; and of a dusky green 

 colour. The flowers are large and beautiful, they 

 are of the bejl-fashioned kind, as broad as a half 

 crown, deep, of a yellow colour, and with a purple 

 bottom ; the seed-vessels are large, and of a roundish 

 figure, and they contain the cotton with the seeds 



among it. When ripe, they burst open into three or 

 four parts. 



The seeds are used in medicine, bat not sa 

 |auch as they deserve ; they are cxcellcBt io cough 



