36 NAT. ORDER. — LOMENTACELE. 



near plantations of this kind of Cassia, and regaling themselves with 

 the fragrance of its flowers. To this species, and its numerous con- 

 geners, the term Cassia, as a generic appellation, is confined by modem 

 botanists. 



It appears by the researches of Mon. Ilippolite Nectoux, that botan- 

 ists and writers on the Materia Medica, have hitherto been mistaken 

 in supposing the tme Senna of the shops to be the leaves and fallicles 

 of the Cassia Senna of Linnaeus. This intelligent and industiious in- 

 quirer instituted, in Eg\'pt, a series of investigations respecting the 

 Senna, which resulted in the singular fact, that Cassia Senna of Lin- 

 naeus, which had always been considered as the tme Senna, is in 

 reality a weed, with which the real Senna is adulterated in Egypt, to 

 augment the quantity produced by the annual growth of the other two 

 plants which constitute the Senna. 



Medical Properties and Uses. " Wild Senna," says Barton, " is 

 now known to be a valuable cathartic of the milder class. It is but 

 a litde, if at all inferior to the Alexandria Senna, and is doubdess one 

 of the most important of our indigenous medicines. Professor Hew- 

 son, of Philadelphia, informed me that he had used it occasionally, and 

 with the same good effect as common Senna ; and I have had some 

 experience with it in my own practice. At the Marine Hospital of the 

 Navy- Yard, I have for some months past substituted it for Alexandria 

 Senna, and frequendy employed it. I have also, in a single instance, 

 used it in my own family. In all these trials I have had reason to 

 confirm die high character of the plant, which it has long maintained. 

 The leaves alone, have in general been used ; but I have made use 

 of the dried leaves follicles, carefully rejecting the leaf-stalks, and beg 

 leave to recommend this manner of employing the plant for medical 

 purposes. I believe the best time for collecting it would be when the 

 pods are ripe, which is about the last of August. 



The affinity of Wild Senna to two of the articles which constitute 

 the Senna of Commerce, renders it probable diat these foreign plants 

 might be cultivated without difficulty, and widi great profit, in our 



