ORIGANUM DICTAMNUS ORD. XIX. Verticillaic. 857 
closes the filaments: the under lip is cut into three obtuse lobes, 
of which the middle one is the largest. Filaments two long and 
two short, filiform, longer than the corolla, and furnished with 
simple anther. Germen divided into four parts. Style slender. 
Stigma bifid. . Seeds four, of an irregular ovate shape, and _ 
at the bottom of the calyx. 
It flowers from June till August. 
This plant, which is a native of the. Island of Candia, appears 
from Turner to have been cultivated in Britain previous to the year 
1568, by Mr. Riche. The specimen here delineated grew in the 
Royal garden at Kew. 
The leaves of this plant are apparently very warm and aromatic ; 
of an agreeable smell, and hot biting taste. They impart their 
virtues both to water and rectified spirit. Distilled with water, they 
give over a moderately strong impregnation to the aqueous fluid ;. 
from which, if the quantity of Dittany be large, there separates, 
as Neuman observes, a small portion of a yellowish essential oil, of 
a highly pungent aromatic taste and smell, and which congeals in 
the cold into the appearance of camphor.* 
Both the Greek and Roman writers have fabled this plant into: 
great celebrity; of which a single instance, related by the Latin: 
~ Poet, affords a beautiful illustration. 
Though rarely used at:this day, it certainly possesses, in a very 
considerable degree, the stimulant and aromatic qualities which 
characterize this class of plants; and has at least an equai share of 
emmenagogue, carminative, and stomachic virtue, 
* Lewis. t. c. 
> Hic Venus, indigno nati concussa dolore, 
Dictamnum genitrix Cretea carpit ab Ida, 
Puberibus caulem foliis, et flore comantem 
Purpureo: non illa feris incognita capris 
Gramina, cim tergo volucres hesére sagitte. 
fin. L, x11, 411. 
No. 30.—vot. 3. AX 
