On the salivary Defluxions of Horses. 358 
for. It comes forward, flowers and ripens its seed, about 
the same time with the second crop of clover. And.as 
olover seed is generally gathered from the second crop, 
it must be very liable to have some of the seed of the 
euphorbia maculata gathered with it, if any of it had 
grown among the clover; and in this way may be exten- 
sively diffused over the country. The salivation was 
observed in the neighbourhood of West Chester, and 
other parts of Chester county, before it was seen in this 
neighbourhood ; and as the farmers here have generally 
obtained their clover seed from thence, it seems highly 
probable, that it has been introduced in that manner. 
As but few of the grasses, except timothy, were pro- 
pagated by seed to any considerable extent in this 
country, before the introduction of clover, and as the 
low flat grounds on which timothy grows, and the closer 
sod it forms about its roots, are unfavorable to the eu- 
phorbia maculata, it is not singular, that, before the culti- 
vation of clover, it should have been confined to the 
margins of fields and open uncultivated grounds, its 
native place. As this plant is not furnished with any 
of those astonishingly curious apparatus for dispersing 
its seeds that many are, and not being eaten by any ani- 
mals except by accident ; it had not the advantages of 
any means of emigrating from its native location, pre- 
vious to its connexion with its friendly associate clover. 
All the plants of the genus euphorbia contain an ex- 
tremely acrid juice;—many of them stand at the head of 
the catalogue of vegetable poisons, many of them, when 
rubbed on the skin, will produce excoriation: and the least 
acrid, when taken into the mouth, act as powerful masti- 
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