2fil 



CURCUMA. 



CUSCUTACE^E. 



262 



herr, and in England by Mr. Walton. The former entomologist has 

 published a work entitled * Genera et Species Curculionidum.' 



CU'RCUMA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 Zinyiberacece. It haa the tube of the corolla gradually enlarged 

 upwards ; the limb 2-lipped, each lip 3-parted ; the single filament 

 broad ; the anther incumbent, with two spurs at the base ; the style 

 capillary ; the capsule 3-celled ; the seeds numerous, arillate. The 

 species are stemless plants with tuberous roote ; the flowers are of a 

 dull yellow colour, surrounded by bracteolse. 



C. Zerumbel, Zedoary, has lateral spikes, the tubers palmate, pale 

 straw-coloured ; the leaves from 4 to 6 together, with a long some- 

 what winged petiole, with a dark purple cloud running down the 

 centre ; the flowers shorter than the bracteoto ; the embryo truncate, 

 nearly as long as the seed, the upper half lodged in the vitellus, the 

 lower half in the periBperm. This plant is the Zedoaria longa of the 

 shops, and has the same property as the following species. It is a 

 native of the East Indies and Java. 



C. Zedoaria, Broad-Leaved Turmeric, has the spikes lateral ; bien- 

 nial tubers, which are yellow internally ; the leaves petioled broad- 

 lanceolate, entire, underneath covered with soft sericeous down. This 

 is the Zedoaria rotunda of the shops. Fc"e has confounded this plant 

 with Ktrmpferia rotunda, wljiuh has no sensible properties resembling 

 the plant in question. The tubers of this plant are aromatic, and 

 are used by the Hindoos not only as a stimulating condiment auil a 

 medicine, but as a perfume. Its sensible properties are very like 

 those of ginger, but not so powerful. It is employed in the East in 

 faxes of disease, as colic, cramp, torpor, &c., where stimulants are 

 indicated. Tlie Zedoary is used under the same circumstances. Tha 

 roots of both these plants are imported into Europe, but are not used 

 extensively. C. Zedoaria is a native of Bengal, China, and various 

 other parts of A.ti.-i, and of the Asiatic Islands. 



C. rub&ceiw has lateral spikes, the tubers pearl-coloured inside ; the 

 leaves bifurious. broad -lanceolate, cuspidate, smooth, strongly marked 

 with parallel veins, of a uniform dark green with the nerves or ribs 

 red, 1 2 to 24 inches long, 5 or 6 inches broad ; the scapes invested with 

 several dark reclduh sheaths. It is a native of Bengal. All the parts 

 of the plant have a pleasant aromatic smell when the plant is bruised. 

 The pendulous tubers of this and several other species of Curcuma 

 yield starch, and are employed by the natives for preparing arrow- 

 root. In Travancore it forms the principal diet of the natives. 



C. Amada, Mango-Ginger, has few-flowered central spikes ; the 

 tubers horizontal, palmate, of a deep orange colour inside ; the leaves 

 radical, bifarious, petioled above their sheaths, lanceolate cuspidate, 

 smooth on both sides, from 6 to 18 inches long by 3 to 6 inches broad. 

 This plant is a native of Bengal, and is called by the Bengalees 

 Amada. It is called Mango-Ginger because the fresh rout has the 

 smell of a mango. It ia used for the same purposes as ginger. 



C. leucvrltiza grows in the fore.sts of Bahar, where it is called 

 Tikor. It has remarkably long tubers, often a foot in length, of a 

 pale yellow inside, and they produce an excellent arrow-root. 



C. anyustifotia, with stalked narrow lanceolate leaves, is a native of 

 the forests of India from the banks of the Lona to Na<rpore. Its 

 tubers, which are found at the end of fleshy tibri-s which meet toge- 

 ther forming a crown, yield an excellent arrow-root, which u that met 

 with in the markets of Benares. 



C. lonya, the common Turmeric, is cultivated all over India, and is 

 used as a condiment and for dyeing. The root is divided into several 

 fleshy fingers, of an oblong form, and as thick as the thumb. The 

 leaves spring at once from the crown of the root, have a lanceolate 

 figure, sheathe each other at the base, are 'about a foot long, and 

 produce from their centre a short thick leafy spike, in the axil of 

 I bracts are seated the inconspicuous pale cream-coloured 

 flowers. Dr. Roxburgh gives the following account of the manner in 

 which the plant is cultivated : " The ground must be rich, friable, and 

 so high as not to be drowned in the rainy seasons, such as the 

 Bengalees about Calcutta call Danga. It is often planted on land 

 where sugar-cane grew the preceding year, and is deemed a meliorating 

 crop. The soil must be well ploughed and cleared of weeds, &c. It 

 is then raised in April and May, according as the rains begin to fall, 

 into ridges, nine or ten inches high, and eighteen or twenty broad, 

 with intervening trenches, nine or ten inches broad. The cuttings or 

 seta, namely, small portions of the freuli root, are planted on the tops 

 of the ridges, at about eighteen inches or two feet asunder. One acre 

 requires about nine hundred such sets, and yields in December 

 and January about two thousand pounds weight of the fresh root." 

 [TURMERIC, in ARTS AND Sc. Dr;] 



CURLEW. [SCOLOPACITA] 

 I CAN'T. [RIBES.J 



CURRUCA, a genus of Insessorial Birds belonging to the tribe 

 Dmtirottra and family Syhiadce. It includes, according to Yarrell, 

 the' following British species : 



Curruca atrica/nlla, the Black-Cap Warbler. 



C. horteniii, the G.irdrn-Warbler. 



C. cinerea, the Common White-Throat. 



C. tylvieUa, the Lesser White-Throat. [BLACK-CAP; SYLvrAD^E ; 

 WHITE-THROAT.] 



rrUSoltirs. [CHARADBIA 



CUSCUTA'CEJi, L>odder, the Dodder Tribe, a small natural order 



of Monopetalous Exogcns, cut off from ComolrulacecE because of their 

 imbricate corolla, which does not fall off after flowering, their seeds 

 with a spiral acotyledonous embryo, and their leafless parasitical 

 habit. There are but two genera of this order, Cuscntu, and Lepidanchf. 

 About 50 species have beeu described. 



Cuscuta, Dodder, is a genus met with in moat temperate climates, 

 the species fixing themselves on the branches of woody or other 

 plants, twisting round them, striking a number of minute suckers 

 down upon their bark, and thus attracting from the system of 

 the plants and from the air the sustenance necessary to their own 

 support. Hence they are true parasites, although they do not actually, 

 like mistletoe, plunge their roots into the wood and incorporate 

 themselves with the tissue. 



Cutailn FjnV/ii/mum, twining round Lucerne. 



I, perfect fiucr; 2, a corolla cut ojieu ; 3, an ovary with its calyx ; 

 4, the embryo. 



The following are the species of Cuacuta found in Great Britain : 

 C. Europaa, Common Dodder, a white or reddish-looking annual, 

 which flings ite thread-shaped arms like a cluster of living threads 

 round the branches of heath, furze, &c., on commons and dry wastes. 

 It has no leaves, except tiny scales that stand in their room ; and it 

 bears small clusters of white bell-shaped blossoms, each of which has 

 five scales at the base of its tube. The fruit is a little membranous 

 capsule, opening transversely like a soap-box, and dropping four seeds 

 upon the soil. There is a common prejudice that these seeds actually 

 strike root into the plant ; but that this is a popular error is sufficiently 

 shown by the following observations translated from De Caudolle : 

 " The seed of dodder differs from that of other Convolvulaceie by the 

 absence of cotyledons, as the dodder itself differs from them by the 

 absence of leaves ; the latter are either entirely absent, or are reduced 

 to almost imperceptible scales. The germination of the dodder is 

 effected, like that of plants in general, in the earth, and without 

 requiring the presence of other vegetables. The embryo, deprived of 

 its cotyledons, is nourished, in its first development, at the expense 

 of the central albumen which it envelops. The slender and simple 

 radicle descends into the earth ; and the plumule, equally simple and 

 cylindrical, rises like a thread : if it finds no other living plant near it, 

 it dies ; if it finds one, it surrounds the stem, and from the points of 

 contact proceed hollow tubercles or suckers which plant themselves 

 in the bark, and suck the juice which has been elaborated by the plant 

 attacked ; then the root becomes obliterated and dies, and the plant 

 lives from that time forward by its suckers only. Whilst it was not 

 a parasite, it rose vertically ; as soon as it became one, it was no longer 

 tempted to direct itself either vertically, or towards the light. Its 

 shoots dart from one plant to the other, and thus are conveyed to new 

 victims when the old ones are exhausted. Often the seeds germinate 

 before they quit the capsules, and the new plant immediately becomes 

 a parasite ; this is particularly observed iu the Cuacuta monoyyna, 

 which attacks the vines in Languedoc. 



"The dodders, called by the French cultivators Teigne, Rache, 

 Perruque, &c., are very dangerous to the fields of leguminous plants 

 which they attack, and upon which they multiply themselves with 

 singular rapidity. They destroy the plants either by depriving them 

 of their nourishment, or by strangling them in their folds. It is 

 difficult to guard against them on account of the rapidity of their 

 vegetation, the facility with which they pass from one plant to 

 another, the abundance of their seeds, and the double power which 

 they possess of germinating either iu the earth or in the capsule. 

 M. Vaucher cleared his artificial fields from dodder pretty well by 

 perpetually breaking and dividing their stalks with a rake. The 



