GLEANINGS AND ORIGINAL MEMORANDA. 108 
letter dated Peradenia, — 14, bids —* The Menispermwm fenestratum Roxb. is taken here, I am told b 
intelligent native, mixed with other thing a great many complaints, and applied externally in some cases, such as for 
weak eyes, &e. The Mie e nM it is to chop up the wood at the knots of the stem very small, and to boil it 
(with other things, which was partieularly impressed upon me) in seven measures of water, until they are evaporated 
to one measure. It seems to be one of the universal medicines employed here in any and every complaint. It is 
quite impossible to get at any definite information from the natives as to what particular complaints certain plants are 
useful in. The priests, who are the doctors, appear to me to mystify the poor people by directing them to take certain 
leaves and roots, which it often gives them no little trouble to find ; and I think that the mind being employed in the - 
matter, as well as the bodily exercise the patient often takes to procure the valued remedies, and a certain mixture of 
faith, have more to do with the cure than the drugs, some of which are evidently perfectly valueless, except to feed cattle.” 
— Bot. Mag., t. 4658 
576. GREVILLEA ACANTHIFOLIA. A. Cunningham. A half-hardy evergreen shrub from Australia. 
Flowers purple, in April and May. Belongs to Proteads. (Fig. 281 
There is no doubt that some of the Proteads from New Holland are very nearly if not quite hardy. @. sul 
and rosmarinifolia are open ground bushes at Exeter, and this, always regarded as a greenhouse plant, requires no pro- 
n 
following description of the plant as he saw it in Mr. Cunningham’s 
Nursery at Comely Bank, near Edinburgh :—“ Shrub erect ; stem 
round, bark brown, branches scattered, angular, green. Leaves 
scattered, pinnatifid, rigid, smooth on both sides, revolute in their 
edges, dark green above, paler below ; pinnæ wedge-shaped at 
' the base, trifid, segments tipped with a spine; 0 of the 
sm d shining pink. Stigma flattened, set straight on the 
top at bd yie; gen or barett ting med ue calyx ; it one -" 
its ce 
7 (P ‘Gee VERRUCOSUS. ` Nuttall. A "ads 
evergreen shrub from California, with pale bluish flowers. 
Belongs to Rhamnads. Introduced by oe Horticultural 
Society. 
The > of this pretty and, as it proves, hardy T 
shrub is due to the venerable Mr. Nuttall, who found it at San 
have been carefully compared with Mr. Nuttall's original ones, and 
they seem ssi to agree. The foliage in our plants is rather 
larger and generally more orbicular, a change that may be due to cultivation ; and in both the leaves are very variable, 
even on the same specimens. Our flowers are very pale purplish-blue. They would appear “ white? in the dried plant 
as described by Torrey and Gray. Our plant is nearly four feet high, much branched, with opposite and more or less 
spreading branches, which are terete, glabrous, studded at the nodes with two to four large, brown, ovate, acute, warty 
9 م 
