PARONYCHIA ARGYROCOMA. SILVERHEAD ; NAILWORT. I 35 



Quite recently there has appeared on the market an article 

 known as " Arabian Tea," which is used not merely as a bev- 

 erage, but also as a tonic in cases of weak digestion. It is used 

 quite extensively in France, where it is imported from Algiers. 

 This "Arabian Tea" is the Paronychia argentea, a plant which 

 is closely related to the Silverhead described in this present 

 chapter. Possibly our plant may make as good a tea as the 

 Algerine jolant, and it would be worth while, at all events, to 

 give it a trial. 



The genus Paronychia, which was created by Tournefort as 

 far back as the year 1700, and now finds general acceptance 

 among botanists, is the type of the order Paronychiacecr, and 

 is a very interesting one to students of botany. The plants 

 grouped together as Paronychiaccce are so closely related in 

 their structure to the plants of other orders, that it is not very 

 easy to define the order itself, and hence there is considerable 

 difference of opinion in regard to it. Dr. Lindley, in the 

 " Vegetable Kingdom," remarks that the Paronychiacea; are 

 "very near Purslanes {Portulacacece), Amaranths {Amarantha- 

 cecs\ and Cloverworts {Caryophyllacece\ from which they are 

 distinguished with difficulty. From the latter their scarious 

 stipules will separate them, and there is scarcely any other 

 character that will. From Purslanes they are best known by 

 the position of the stamens before the sepals instead of the 

 petals (see our Fig. 2), and by the number of the sepals." Sachs, 

 in his " Text-Book of Botany," does not regard the characters 

 as sufificiently distinctive to form a separate order, and therefore 

 classes these plants as the section Paronychiccs of his family 

 Caryophyllecc. None of our American authors. Dr. Gray, Prof. 

 Wood, or Dr. Chapman, recognize the order Paronychiacecr, 

 and in their works our species must therefore be looked for 

 among the Caryophyllacece 



The close affinity of some natural orders often worries the 

 student of classification, who values more definite lines of dis- 

 tinction ; but it is very welcome to the careful student of plant- 



