CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA. ORD. IV. Aggregate. Bees 
Pernambuqua, Bahia, &c. inhabiting the woods, and flowering from No- 
vember to March. The root is simple, or somewhat branched, and furnished 
with a few short radicles; it is roundish, three or four inches in length, and 
two or three lines in thickness, irregularly bent, externally of a brown co. 
lour, and annulated with numerous, prominent, unequal, rings. The stem 
is procumbent at the base, rising from five to nine inches in height, round, 
the thickness of a hen’s quill; smooth, leafless, of a brownish colour, knotted 
at the lower part, and leafy towards the upper: after the first year it throws 
out a few knotty runners, from which, about six inches apart, new stems 
arise. The inferior leaves are caducous, so that not more than eight gene- 
rally remain at the summit of each stem, when it flowers: they are nearly 
sessile, opposite, spreading, ovate, pointed at both ends, three or four inches 
long, and less than two broad; of a bright green on the upper surface, be- 
neath of a whitish green colour, pubescent, veined ; at the base of each pair 
of leaves, is a pair of short, fimbriated, withering, stipules, embracing the 
stem. The flowers are aggregated in a solitary head, on a round, downy 
foot-stalk, terminating the stem; somewhat drooping, and encompassed by a 
four-leaved involucre. The florets are sessile, from fifteen to twenty-four in 
number, interspersed with little bracteas; the calyx very small ,five-toothed, 
superior, and persistent ; the corolla monopetalous ; the border shorter than 
the tube, woolly about the throat, swelling upwards, and divided into five 
ovate, acute, spreading, segments. The filaments are short, capillary, in- 
serted into the upper part of the tube, and bearing oblong, linear, erect, 
anthers. The germen is ovate, surmounted by a thread-shaped style, as long 
as the tube, surrounded at its base with a short, nectariferous rim, and ter- 
' minated by two obtuse stigmas, the length of the anthers. The fruit is a 
one-celled berry, of a reddish purple colour, becoming wrinkled and black, 
and containing two smooth, oval seeds. Figure (a) represents a flower mag- 
nified: (b) the corolla spread open, to show the anthers: (c) the germen, 
style, and stigmas: (d) an interfloral bractea: (e) a berry: (f) section of a 
berry, shewing the seed. 
Although the root of this plant* has been long employed as an emetic, and 
* Brown Ipecacuan was first brought into Europe about the middle of the last cen- 
tury; but it is impossible to ascertain at what period this root was first known for its 
emetic effects in America. Piso published an account of it in 1618. 
