566 DAPHNE. [class viii. order I. 



a delightful fragrance. Stamens on short filaments, with ovate yellow 

 anthers, four about the middle of the tube, and four at the orifice. 

 Style very short, with a capitate stigma, entire, depressed. Fruit a 

 round herry, of one cell, single seeded, scarlet, sometimes orange colour. 



Habitat. — Woods, rare; in the Midland and Southern Counties of 

 England. 



Shrub; flowering in March. 



The common Mezereon is a favourite garden shrub, thriving well 

 in a loamy soil, and flourishes either on the open border or beneath the 

 drip of trees, and is one of our earliest flowering plants, its branches 

 being frequently clothed with its highly fragrant flowers while the 

 snow still covers the ground, and hoary rime hangs upon the shrubbery ; 

 and 



*< Though leafless well attired, and thick beset 

 With blushing wreaths, investing every spray." 



Cowper, 



It is a native of all parts of Europe, and the bark, both of the stems 

 and roots, have long been used as a medicine, having a hot pungent 

 acrid taste, acting as a powerful stimulant to the throat and fauces, 

 and exciting considerable irritation and inflammation when applied to 

 the surface of the body, its activity residing in a peculiar principle 

 obtained in a crystalline form by Vauqueline, to which he has given 

 the name of Daphnin, a principle which is found to abound more or 

 less abundantly in all the species of the genus, and on account of this 

 active principle they have been applied to various medicinal uses, but 

 more especially the present and following species. As a remedy for 

 the tooth ache it has long been in use ; by masticating it a considerable 

 flow of saliva is produced, and a degree of inflammation excited, which 

 acts as a counter-irritant. Made into a decoction it has had the repu- 

 tation of being useful in chronic rheumatism, scrofulous and venereal 

 swellings, and some aff'ections of the skin ; but it is not now relied 

 upon in such affections, and if taken in too large a quantity produces 

 vomiting and purging. The decoction has also been thought useful 

 as an external stimulating wash to indolent ulcers, and in France it 

 is still used : where also the bark is formed into an ointment, and used 

 as a stimulating application to blistered surfaces, to keep up a continued 

 discharge ; and if alone applied to the surface of the skin in some indi- 

 viduals, produces a considerable serous discharge, and seems useful in 

 the place of blisters for children, as producing less pain than the 

 plaister of Blistering Flies. The berries possess the same property as 

 the bark, but require great care in administering them, for Linnseus 

 says in his Flora Suecica that six berries will kill a wolf, and that he 

 once saw a girl die of excessive vomiting and hamoptysis, in conse- 

 quence of taking twelve of them to cure an ague; but Pallas and 

 Villars say that the berries are taken both in Siberia and in Dauphiny 

 as cathartics, thirty being a dose, and that they are also given to 



