ASTERACE^. 



Madeira, the Canaries, and the United States, where it has 

 probably been introduced. (Stinking May weed.) 



Root tapering, twisted. Stems 1 or more, erect, branched, bushy, 

 leafy, angular and furrowed, smooth, solid. Leaves sessile, bright 

 green, smooth, or slightly hairy, doubly pinnatifid, and cut ; the seg- 

 ments narrow, flat, a little succulent, spreading and rather distant, not 

 crowded or parallel, somewhat bristle-pointed. Flower-heads solitary, 

 on terminal, striated, slightly downy, stalks. Involucre more or less 

 hairy, its scales almost equal, obtuse, slightly bordered. Disk convex, 

 lemon-coloured, the slender bristle-shaped, or awl-shaped, greenish 

 scales not quite so tall as the opening florets. Rays white, elliptical, 

 3-toothed, deflexed close to the stalk at night. Seeds obovate, fur- 

 rowed, entirely without any border or crown, but sometimes, as Haller 

 describes them, rough with minute tubercles. Receptacle highly conical, 

 almost cylindrical, beset with slender permanent scales. Smith. — Every 

 part of the plant is fcetid and acrid, blistering the skin when much 

 handled. Its decoction is a strong and active bitter, in the dose of a 

 tea-cupfull producing copious vomiting and sweating. Barton. 



ANACYCLUS. 



Head many-flowered, heterogamous. Florets of the ray ? , 

 sterile, ligulate or somewhat so, very rarely tubular ; of the 

 disk <?, with 5 callous teeth. Receptacle conical or convex, pa- 

 leaceous. Involucre in few rows, somewhat campanulate, shorter 

 than the disk. All the corollas with an obcompressed, 2-winged, 

 exappendiculate tube. Style of the disk with exappendiculate 

 branches. Achasnium flat, obcompressed, bordered with broad 

 entire wings. Pappus short, irregular, toothletted, somewhat 

 continuous with the wings, on the inner side. DC. 



927. A. Pyrethrum DC.Jl.fr. suppl. 480 prodr. vi. 15. — 

 Anthemis Pyrethrum Linn. sp. pi. 1262. Desf.Ji. ail. ii. 287. 

 Lam. illustr. t. 683. f. 4. Chama?melum specioso flore, radice 

 fervente Shaw afr. spec. n. 138. — Barbary, Arabia, Syria, and 

 probably Candia. (Pellitory of Spain.) 



Stems numerous, procumbent, somewhat branched, downy. Radical 

 leaves spreading, stalked, smoothish, pinnatifid ; the segments pinnated, 

 with linear subulate lobes ; cauline leaves sessile. Branches 1-headed. 

 Involucral scales lanceolate, acuminate, brown at the edge. Receptacle 

 convex, with oblong-obovate, obtuse palea?. Florets of the ray white. — 

 Root fusiform, fleshy, very pungent, and when fresh producing a sensa- 

 tion of extreme cold followed by heat, when handled. Desf. The root 

 is imported from the Levant under the name of Pellitory of Spain. It 

 is brownish externally, whitish internally : its taste is hot, acrid and 

 permanent, depending on a fixed acrid oil deposited in vesicles in the 

 bark ; this oil renders the root a powerful rubefacient and stimulant. 

 It is principally employed as a masticatory in rheumatic affections of 

 the face, or in the form of tincture in toothach. Sometimes gargles are 

 made of it, and used in relaxation of the uvula. Internally it has 

 been taken as a gastric stimulant. Pereira. 



460 



