64* ENGLISH BOTANY. 



is still occasionally employed as a culinary herb. Many valuable properties were 

 attributed to it in bygone times ; and even in late years some faith has been placed 

 in its curative powers in epilepsy and convulsions. Dr. Withering tells us of a 

 patient who was cured of hysteric fits of many years' duration by a dram of the 

 leaves being administered four times a day. Gerarde writes : " Pliny saith that the 

 traveller or wayfaring man that hath the herbe tied about him feeleth no wearisom- 

 nesse at all ; and that he who hath it about him can be hurt by no poysonsome 

 medicines nor by any wilde beast, neither yet by the sun itself; and also that it is 

 drunke agaiuste opium or the juyce of blacke poppy. Many other fantasticale devices 

 invented by Poets are to be seene in the works of the antient writers tending to 

 witchcraft and sorcerie, and the great dishonour of God ; wherefore I do of purpose 

 omit them as things unworthy of my recording to your reviewing." We fear that a 

 similar commentary might be appended to the chief part of the earlier editions of 

 good old Gerarde's own herbal. Sheep are said to be very fond of the herbage of 

 mugwort, and also of the roots. It may, perhaps, be the Artemisia of Pontus, which 

 was celebrated among the ancients for fattening these animals. Pliny states that the 

 sheep of Pontus became very fat, and were always without gall after eating this 

 plant, — a circumstance highly improbable and not to be accepted. 



Section III.— OLIGOSPORUS. Cass. 



Antliodes heterogamous, central florets with the ovary abortive, 

 those of the circumference female. Clinanth glabrous. 



SPECIES III.— ARTEMISIA CAMPESTRIS. Linn. 



Plate DCCXXXIII. 



Beich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XVI. Tab. MXXXV. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1007 {bis). 



Stem herbaceous, somewhat woody at the base, procumbent 

 before flowering, at length ascending, paniculately branched, with 

 the branches ascending. Leaves not punctate, at first pubescent, at 

 length glabrous ; the lower ones stalked, pinnate or bipinnate, with 

 the ultimate segments linear, blunt, apiculate. Anthodes very 

 numerous, few-flowered, erect, very shortly stalked, in elongate 

 spikelike racemes arranged in a leafy panicle with elongate ascend- 

 ing branches. Pericline oblong-ovoid ; phyllaries all glabrous, 

 scarious at the tips, the outer ones much shorter. Pemale florets 

 filiform, with an enlarged base. Clinanth glabrous. 



On dry open sandy heaths, on the confines of Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, as about Brandon, and near Thetford and Bury St. 

 Edmunds, also near Belfast, but introduced. 



England, [Ireland]. Perennial. Autumn. 



Rootstock woody, producing tufts of short leafy barren shoots, 



