182 COMPOSITE 



to adulterate ipecacuanha ; but it is made into a cordial sweetmeat, which is 

 eaten by people of the East, and considered to have sanatory properties. 

 Elecampane lozenges were, a few years since, sold by druggists in England ; 

 and, on the Continent, various preparations of its juices form several 

 favourite carminatives. The leaves, too, bruised and steeped in wine, and 

 mingled with whortlelieiries, produce a rich blue dye. The plant grows wild 

 in several CTDuntries of Europe, and is cultivated in others for flavouring 

 confectionery. The French call it Inule d'Aulnie ; the Germans, Alaut ; the 

 Dutch, Gewoon alaut; the Italians, Enula ; and the Russians, Dewjaischik. 

 Its name of helenium refers to the celebrated Helen, who is said to have had 

 her hands full of these flowers when Paris carried her off. It was once very 

 common in Sweden, but is now less frequent. Dr. A. Griesbach, of Gottingen, 

 remarks : " Many plants have been extirpated by use : this is now gradually 

 taking place with Gentidna lutea, in the Alps, and Inula helenium, in the north 

 of Sweden. The contact of man with nature exerts no less a modifying 

 influence on the vegetable kingdom than upon the animal creation. The 

 original vegetation of a country must in general, therefore, be regarded as 

 more rich in species ; and in this manner, in Sweden and Germany, even 

 under our own eyes, the localities of rare plants are disappearing one after 

 the other." 



2. Ploughman's Spikenard (/. conyza). — Leaves egg-shaped, some- 

 what lanceolate, serrated, downy, the upper ones entire, lower ones narrowed 

 into a footstalk; stem herbaceous, corymbose; scales of the involucre all 

 narrow, and turning backwards, leafy ; ray scarcely longer than the disk ; 

 fruit round, slightly hairy ; biennial. This plant, though rarely if ever 

 truly wild in Scotland, is very common on waste places south of York and 

 Westmoreland, from the chalky or clayey hedge-bank to the heights of the 

 sea-cliff. It is a large and not a handsome plant, its heads of flowers having 

 a few small florets, those of the ray being something between tubular and 

 strap-shaped, and all dull yellow. The foliage, too, is of a sombre green, 

 and the leaf-like scales of the involucre are frequently of a reddish-brown 

 hue. The stem is about two or three feet high, and the panicles of flowers 

 have leaves growing among them. They appear from July to October. The 

 plant has a slightly aromatic odour — "the Ploughman's Spikenard's spicy 

 smell" — but this is not very perceptible till it is gathered. It possesses, 

 however, a valuable oil, which is used as a sudorific, and which is said to 

 destroy insects ; hence the plant is sometimes called Flybane, and by the 

 French, Herhe aux puces. It was once much A'alued in the cure of disease, 

 both here and in France. The French call it also Conise ; the Germans term 

 it Durrwurz ; the Dutch, Tonderkruid ; and the Spaniards and Italians, 

 Conizza. Gerarde says that the "learned herbarists" of Montpellier called 

 it Baccharis, believing it to be the plant alluded to by Virgil by that name. 

 An American purple-flowered species emits a strong odour of camphor ; and 

 other plants of the genus yield fragrant gums, which might be useful both 

 in medicine and the arts, and several of which have been found to Idc of great 

 medical use. 



3. Golden Samphire (/. crifhmoides). — Leaves linear, fleshy, usually 

 three-toothed at the extremity ; scales of the involucre closely pressed, narrow, 



