344 <A BoranicAL DEscRIPTION OF THE 
loofe. The feeds are to be difperfed. The ftalk fupporting 
their capfule becomes cernuous, or bends downwards, the 
bending being made a little below the protuberant part of 
the ftalk,which I have reprefented in the different figures 
of the feed-veffel, &c. 7 
The feed-veflel is, for fome time, of a green-colour : 
as it advances in fize, and age, it changes its colour, be- 
coming, at length, of a yellowifh-hue. 
In the garden of Mr. Bartram, before mentioned, the 
Fefferfonia binata flowers early in thefpring. The feeds 
ripen before mid-f{ummer. Soon after this period, the 
plant withers and decays, but the root continues to live, 
at a {mall depth under the furface of the ground, encreaf- 
ing, by offfets, on all fides. 
As I have not had an opportunity of feeing the young 
plant arifing from the feed, I can fay nothing refpeQing 
its placentation. . 
sons eat ee Rs rear 
I confider the fcience of botany as being fo intimately 
conneéted with medicine, and with other ufeful arts, and 
Iam fo unfriendly to the mere nomenclatural part of the 
fcience, that I once refolved never to exhibit my defcription 
of a new plant, unlefs I could, at the fame time, give fome 
certain account of its properties in medicine, its ufe in diet, 
or in dying, &c. I have, however, been obliged to alter 
my determination; for of the Feffer/onia binata | know 
nothing that will ferve to illuftrate its hiftory in either of 
thefe refpects. It is, however, worthy of obfervation, 
that the root of this plant bears a very ftriking fimilarity, 
both in tafte and in fmell, to the root of our May-Apple, 
the Podophyllum peltatum of Linnzus. This tafte is ra- 
ther naufeous and bitter, and the fmell powerful, and not 
agreeable. 
The Podophyllum peltatum is a plant much efteemed by 
the Cheerake, and other tribes of North-American Indi- 
ans, 
