12 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
grows abundantly, it is still used by the peasantry as a remedy for ague. Dr. Wither-_ 
ing tells us that the powder of the roots has cured agues when Peruvian bark nal 
failed. Dr. Barton says his experience enables him to state “that in dyspepti 
flatulence, and other disorders of the stomach, it merits the attention of the physician.” 
Chewed, and the juice only swallowed, it is a pleasant remedy for indigestion, and by 
stimulating the salivary glands is a remedy for toothache. , 
The sweet flag was undoubtedly known to the Greeks, and was the dxopoc of 
Dioscorides, and probably the xcaAapoc pupeducde of Hippocrates and the cadapyoc of 
Theophrastus. It must not, however, be confounded with the Calamus aromati 
which, according to Royle, was a species of grass. The tonic medicine known as 
this plant and that of Gentiana campestris. For medicinal purposes the rhizomes a 
cut up into pieces four or five inches long, and dried. The roots of the yellow i 
are often sold for it in the shops. It is also candied, and in Turkey is consumed as | 
sweetmeat in this form. It is largely used by perfumers as an ingredient in tooth 
powder, and to give scent to hair powder. Infused in liquids it imparts an aromatic 
taste and agreeable odour. Professor Johnston tells us, in his ‘“‘ Chemistry of Common 
Life,” that it is used to give taste and fragrance to certain varieties of beer, and also 
to improve the flavour of gin. It is sent up to the London market chiefly from 
Norfolk, and as much as 40/. is sometimes given for the year’s crop of a single acre 
river-side land, on which it naturally grows. The leaves were used at one tim 
practice of covering all floors with rushes or boughs of trees. 
Trise I].—ARE. 
Flowers unisexual, androgynous—i.e. the male and female on the 
same spadix, without any perianth. Spadix surrounded by a spathe, 
which is convolute or tubular at the base. 
GENUS Il—A RUM, Linn. 
Spathe convolute at the base. Spadix free, cylindrical, naked and 
more or less clubshaped at the apex, with collars of unisexual flowe 
reduced to stamens and pistils. Male flowers uppermost, with a ring of. 
appendiculate tubercles (abortive ovaries?) above them, and usuall 
another ring of similar tubercles between the male and female flowers 
anthers subsessile, free or united in pairs, 2-lobed, 1- or 2-celled 
Ovaries 1-celled, with several ovules; style short or none; stigm: 
tuftlike or peltate. Fruit fleshy, a 1-celled berry, with 1 or severa 
seeds. Seeds subglobular, with a coriaceous reticulated testa; emb 
in the axis of the albumen, radicle pointing away from the hilum. 
Perennial stemless plants, with cormo-tuberous rhizomes and stalke 
cordate-sagittate or hastate-sagittate leaves, with reticulate venation 
