RAFFLESIACE.E. ARISTOLOCHIEJE. 229 



clivideil at the edge into 5 scjuoicnts, whicli wore revoluto or tunifid outwards. The 

 whole interior was a beautiful dee]) erimson, wliieli made it a striking object, seated 

 as it was elose upon the ground. It was about (i inches in diameter, and of a very 

 thick leatliery consistence. I cannot reeoll(^cl~nuit it had any ofl'ensivo smell. I 

 gatliered it as I would gathc^r a fungus, and tliough I was most iuixious to cany 

 it home, I was (juite puzzled what to do with it. I liad no spirit, or vessel large 

 enough to put it in, if I liad had. To press it was out of the question — for it would 

 have behaved under the process, as mauy fleshy fungi do, that is to say, it would 

 have deli(iuesced, or become an otlensivo putrid mass. Nor was I, unfoi-tunately, 

 provided with drawing materials, beyond a scrap of paper and a bit of pencil, with 

 wluch I made a hasty and rude outline of it. This sketch, rude though it was, 

 I possessed for several years, and believing that I still possessed it, I liave recently 

 searched diligently for it, but in vain. It was the fact of my having it in my 

 possession so long, and seizing it from time to time, that has enabled me to remember 

 it as well as I do. Having, then, made this rude sketch, I put the flower into my 

 vasculura to take its chance, but in two or throe daj-s it was a black shapeless mass, 

 and had to be flung away. As far as my memory .serves, without the slight ad- 

 ditional help the drawing would have furnished, the interior, when looked down 

 upon, was occupied by the large tabular summit of a central fleshy column, in form 

 very like an Agaric, and on the inner and under surface, or where the gills of an 

 Agaric are, were a number of sessile anthers ; but as to their number and arrange- 

 ment I cannot speak farther. It was, I imagine, a male flower of a dicecious species 

 of IidfHexia. 



The buds were globose, and looked like puff-balls, but what their exterior 

 colour was I forget. 



I am sorry to be able to give but such a meagre account of this remarkable 

 flower, but it may suifice to (li'aw the attention of some future botanist towards it. 



Older AEISTOLOCniE.E. 



Flowers hermaphrodite. Perianth regular or not, valvate. Leaves alternate, 

 cxstipulate. 



AUISTOLOCniE^. 

 Ovnrij se.ra!if/ii!(ir. Ovules numerous, liiseriiife. 



AiiisToLocui-i,' Linnuus. 



A. .^erjiixATA, Lam. (M.). 



No other species is mentioned by Mason, but the common Indian .species, 

 A. Indica, probably occurs as \vell. Jlost Arisloloeliiea: contain in their root a 

 volatile oil, a bitter resin, and an acrid extractable substance. Several species were 

 once highly valued in medicine, and are so by natives still, being regarded as ex- 

 cellent in disea.ses of the womb and kidneys, and as emetic, anthelmintic, and anti- 

 hysteric in their action. Several species have also been held in high esteem as 

 antidotes to snake jioison — a fallacious idea, from tlie extreme rapidity with which 

 that poison acts, and its marvellous subtlety when once introduced into the system ; 

 but doubtless the idea of the plant proving of service originated in the fancied 

 resemblance of the leaves to the variegated skin ^>i a snake, or, as it is termed, the 

 ' doctrine of signatures,' another instance of which maj- be (juotod in one of the 

 ingredients in a celebrated snake antidote, which canu- under my observation in 

 Rangoon, which was the woody skeleton of a fruit [Martijnin diandra) conamon 

 in hedgerows in Bengal (though indigenous to tropical America), whose oval frame- 

 work tennimites in two bony recurved hooks, bearing a strong resemblauco to the 

 divergent fangs of a viperine snake. The ripe fruit is clothed with a green skin 



' apiarot, best : Aoxfios, [icrtaininj; to lalioar. From the siippoiied cllii'acy of tlic [ihiiU in regulating 

 the functions of the womb. 



