COMPOSIT AI. 309 
external application in rheumatic pains and paralytic affections 
also for bad ulcers; the small seeds are reckoned amongst 
their laxative medicines, for which purpose I see they are also 
used in Jamaica (the kernels beat into an emulsion with honey- 
ed water). Barham tells us that a drachm of the dried flowers 
taken cures the jaundice.” (Mat. Ind. u., 364.) 
The seeds are known in England as Parrot seed. Under the 
name of safflower the flowers form an important export article 
to Europe; they contain two colouring matters, yellow and 
red, the latter is the most valuable. In silk dyeing it affords 
various shades of pink, rose, crimson and scarlet. Rouge is 
also made from it. According to Calvert (Dyeing and Calico 
Printing, Ed. 1878,) though the safflower has lost much of its 
value as a dye since the discovery of the aniline colours, it 
is still used extensively in Lancashire for the production of 
peculiar shades of pink of the Eastern markets. It is also 
used for dyeing red tape, and there is no more striking in- 
stance of “ red-tapeism,” than the love which is shown for this 
particular colour by the users of that article. Much cheaper 
pinks can be produéed from aniline, but notwithstanding the 
attempts which have many times been made to introduce 
them, they have failed in every instance, because the exact 
Shade has not been obtained. 
Description.—The Carthamus grows about two or three 
- feet high, with a stiff upright whitish stem, branching near the’ 
top ; and has oval, spiny, sharp-pointed leaves, their bases half 
clasping the stem; the flowers grow in heads at the end of the 
branches, and are surrounded by numerous leafy bracts (invo-— 
lucre) in numerous rows, the outermost row being broad and 
spreading out flat, with their edges spiny, the middle ones more 
upright, of an oval form,and surmounted by an egg-shaped 
appendage with spiny edges, and-the innermost much narrower, — 
quite upright, with their edges entire, but terminated by — 
_ Sharp spiny point. Each flower is ee and has an ates 
yellow corolla eon than ‘the:in , their 
=—s imbedded ina dense 1 
