26 



therae are hair}', and each hair is curiously and regu- 

 larly jointed. 



Amid the various colours of flowers, yellow is the 

 most common, and scarlet the most rare; and the 

 Pimpernel and the red Poppy are the only English 

 scarlet flowers that I am acquainted with. The Pim- 

 pernel, however, is sometimes white, and sometimes 

 of a bright blue, tinged with purple j but these vari- 

 eties are not common. 



The Peruvian Bark tree is of this Class and Order. 

 The discovery of its efficacies are thus described by 

 Dr. Darwin : ' ' Several of these trees were felled for 

 other purposes into a lake, when an epidemic fever of 

 a very mortal kind prevailed at Loxa, in Peru, and the 

 woodmen accidentally drinking the water were cured; 

 and thus were discovered the virtues of this famous 

 drug." Coffee and Tobacco are both of this Order. 



WATER HEMLOCK grows in ditches, and the 

 margins of rivers, always under water when young, in 

 which situation horned cattle sometimes eat it by mis- 

 take, and are poisoned; it is also poisonous to the 

 canine species and to man, but horses, hogs, and goats, 

 eat it without danger. At Tornoa, in Lapland, a fatal 

 disease prevailed among the cattle when Linnaeus was 

 making a botanical tour through that country, the 

 cause of which was wholly unknown to the farmers ; 

 but this great naturalist immediately discovered the 

 disease to be produced by this plant being eaten in 

 marshy pasturage while in its young state under water, 



