DIOSMA CRENATA: ORD. XXVI. Mudtisilique. 53 
ticularly at the edges between each tooth. The flowers are solitary, on short 
pedicels, and arise from the ends of short, opposite, lateral, leafy shoots. 
The calya consists of five deep, ovate, acute, permanent, segments; the co- 
rolla is composed of five delicate, elliptic-oblong, slightly spreading, petals, 
of a pale reddish tint, or white. The mecturies are five linear-lanceolate 
scales. Filaments five, awl-shaped, supporting ovate, incumbent anthers ; 
the germen is superior, turbinate; style erect, the length of the stamens 
crowned with a simple stigma. The capsule is ovate, containing an oblong, 
solitary seed, inclosed in an elastic arillus. 
The crenated Diosma is a perennial shrub, native of the Cape of Good 
Hope, in this country blossoming about March, and requiring the protection 
of a green-house in winter. If ourplant be the same as that of Ait. in Hort. 
Kew. ed. 2. v. ii. p. 32. 1t was first introduced into this country by Mr. Francis 
Masson, in the year 1774. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties, §c. The whole of this plant has a very 
strong and peculiar odour, and a slightly bitter, mucilaginous taste. By 
distillation with water, it affords an essential oil, with the odour and flavour 
-of camphor and rue. It yields to water, on long continued boiling, a con- 
siderah*e quantity of mucilage. The essential vil imparted to boiling water 
by infusion, is dissipated by decoction. The leaves of this plant have been 
analyzed by M. Cadet, Junior, and yielded the following products : Essential 
Oil 0.665, Gum 21.17, Extractive 6.17, Chlorophylle 1.10, Resin 2.151.* 
Medical Properties and Uses. This plant has been lately introduced into 
the Dublin pharmacopeia as an officinal drug,t and esteemed to be an ex- 
cellent stomachic, and an efficacious diuretic. From the experience of several 
eminent physicians in Dublin, it appears to possess very considerable powers 
on the urinary organs, and to have proved a very powerful remedial agent 
in chronic inflammations of the bladder and urethra, arising from stricture 
of the urethra, calculi, diseased prostate gland, &c. &c. Dr. M‘Dowall has 
given many cases of these kinds, in which it has proved eminently success- 
ful.t It has also been administered with beneficial effects in chronic rheuma- 
tism. For many years it appears to have been successfully prescribed in 
* Journ. Chim. iii. 44. 
+ Dr. Reece of Bolton Row, we believe, was the first to excite the attention of British 
practitioners to the Diosma crenata. 
t Vide Dublin Medical Transactions. 
