ees Ges we 
Lei 
CENTAUREA BENEDICTA, ORD. I. Composite. 35 
sessile, and on one side extend along the stalk, but the lower leaves — 
stand upon footstalks: the flowers are enclosed by an involucrum of 
ten leaves, of these the five external ones are the largest: the calyx 
is oval, imbricated, smooth, woolly, and consists of several squamous 
eoverings, terminated by rigid, pinnated, spinous points: the flowers 
are compound, or composed of several yellow florets; those at the 
circumference want the parts necessary to fructification, but those at — 
the centre are hermaphrodite, tubular, unequally divided at the limb, 
and dentated at their upper extremities: the filaments are five, 
tapering, white, downy, and inserted in the base of the corolla: the 
antherz are cylindrical, tubulous, brownish, striated, and somewhat 
longer than the corolla: the style is filiform, and of the same length 
as the stamina: the stigma is yellow and cloven: the seedsare oblong, 
brown, striated, bent, and crowned with a hairy wing or feather, 
similar to that of the receptacle. It is a native of Spain and the 
Levant, and flowers in June and September. 
The first account of the cultivation of this plant in England i is 
given by Gerard, in 1597, and it is now usually cultivated with 
other exotic medicinal simples. It has an intensely bitter taste, 
accompanied with an unpleasant smell, which it loses upon being 
well dried. “ Cold water, poured on the dry leaves, extracts in an 
hour or two a light grateful bitterness: by standing long upon the 
plant the liquor becomes disagreeable. Rectified spirit in a short 
time extracts the lighter bitter of the ig but does not take 
up the nauseous so easily as water.’*.. The watery extract, PY 
keeping, produces a salt upon its surface, which.resembles nitre.” 
This plant obtained the appellation of Benedictus, from its being 
supposed to possess extraordinary medicinal virtues; for exclusive 
of those qualities which are usually attributed to bitters, it was 
thought to be a very powerful alexipharmic, and capable of curing 
the plague, and other fevers of the most malignant kind ;* but its 
* Lewis Mat. Med. p. 195. 
» Sal commune continere albi. Hist. de ’Acad. des Sc. de Berlin, 1747, P- 79. 
© Matthiol. in Dioscor. p. 597. 
