' 



IT.VNKI.. 



KKSTUCA. 



KKXNKI.. [FiENirt-LUM.] 



I-KNTUKKKK. [TRIOOXELLA.] 



KKK.K. the thin! order of Mammalia, according to LimuQiw. Tlic 

 following U hi character of the order : Upper incinor teeth (primorvs) 

 nix, nther acute (acutiusciili) ; canine teeth solitary. The order con- 

 taint the following genera : 1. Pkota (the Seals) ; 2. Canit (the Dogs, 

 Wnlven, Foxes, Hvirnos, and Jackals) ; 3. Ptlii (the Cats, Lions, 

 Tigers, Leopards, Lynxes, and smaller caU) ; 4. Kirn-re (the Ichneu- 

 mons, Coatia, Skunk (Pnoriut), Civets, and GeneU) ; S. Muttrla (the 

 Otters, Glutton, Mortons, Pole-Cat*, Ferret*, and Weasels, including 

 the Krmine, Ac.) ; 6. I'm* (Bean, Badgers, and Racoons) ; 7. IHdcl- 

 fkit (the Opossums) ; 8. Talpa (the Moles) ; 9. Sorex (the Shrews) ; 

 1<>. Krinaftta (the Hedgehogs). Linua-us places the Ptra between 

 the orders lirula and lilint. 



FKKGl-'SONITK, a crystallised mineral, which is principally a 

 Columbate of Yttria. It has been found only in Greenland, near Cape 

 Farewell, imbedded in quartz. 



Its primary form is a square prism. Colour brownish-black. Opaque, 

 except in the splinters. Lustre slightly metallic. Specific gravity 

 6-833. Hardness 5'5 to 6*0. Streak pale brown. Fracture conchoidol. 

 llefore the blow-pipe becomes of a greeniiih-yellow, and does not fuse, 



99-65 



FEIlNS, the common name for a group of Cryptogamous Plants. 

 I KM ICES; DAK.KACE.K; LYCOFODIACES ; POLYPODIAC&B; MARSII.KACKA:; 



OrilllXil.OSSAI -K.V.J 



FEKO'NIA, the name of agenus of Plants belonging to the natural 

 order A uranliaceir. The flowers are often polygamous. The petals 

 are usually 5 in number, occasionally 4 or 6, spreading. The calyx is 

 flat and 5-tootbed. Stamens 10 ; filaments dilated and united at the 

 base ; anthers linear-oblong, tetragonal. The ovary is seated on the 

 elevated disc, 5- or occasionally 6-celled ; ovules numerous in each cell. 

 It has scarcely any style and an oblong stigma. The fruit is inclosed 

 in a bard rind, 5-celled and many seeded, which seeds ore immersed 

 in a fleshy pulp. The leaves are pinnated with from 5 to 7 leaflets 

 nearly or quite sessile, very slightly crenulated, with pellucid dot* 

 along the margin, inconspicuously dotted elsewhere : the racemes are 

 axillary, terminal, and few-flowered. 



P. Elrjihantum is the Elephant-Apple or Wood-Apple of the Coro- 

 mandel coast, where it is very generally eaten. The branches of this 

 tree are armed with small spines. The leaflets, which vary in number 

 from 5 to 7, are small, obovate and smooth ; when very young they 

 are thin, and when bruised have a most fragrant smell resembling 

 anise. The native practitioners of India consider them stomachic 

 and carminative. After a certain age however the leaves become 

 tough and almost coriaceous. The fruit is fleshy, and extremely acid 

 before it arrives at maturity ; but when ripe, it contains a dark-brown 

 agreeable subacid pulp. In appearance the fruit is large, spheroidal, 

 rugged, and often waited externally : the seeds are in five parcels, and 

 are flat and woolly, adhering to the branched placenta; by means of 

 long cords. 



A transparent oily fluid exudes from the trunk of this tree when 

 an incision is made into it, which is used by painters for mixing their 

 colours. A clear white gum may also be obtained from the tree very 

 much resembling gum-arabic. The wood is likewise valuable on 

 account of its durability, whiteness, and hardness. 



P. pcllufida has leaves full of transparent dots ; the common petiole 

 round, pubescent ; this tree usually attains a height of 20 feet, and is 

 a native of the Kast Indies, where the fruit is generally eaten. The 

 dowers are white. 



In cultivation these trees thrive well in a mixture of turfy loam and 

 peat: and ripened cuttings will strike root in sand under a glims 

 exposed to beat 



ley. Flora Medico, ; Don, IStcUamydtout Plant*.) 



I I.IUIKT. [MrsTKLinjL] 



KKUHO-TANTALITE. [COLUJIBITK.] 



r'K'ltULA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 'tifrrir, whose species often yield a powerful stimulating gum- 

 rosin employed in medicine. It differs from Pattinaca and Pence- 

 tlaxtim by iU fruit having several vittjo in each channel, and from 

 Opapmtax, which it otherwise resembles, in the margin of the fmit 

 being thin and flat, not thickened and convex. The fruit is in appear- 

 ance extremely similar to that of a parsnip ; it is compressed from 

 the back till it is extremely flat, and it thins away at the edge. There 

 are three approximated filiform dorsal ridges, and the two lateral ones 

 are distant, obsolete, or lost in the edge. In each channel there are 

 three or more vitUc, and on the cotnmi'surc four, or a groat many. 

 Tli.- flower* are always yellow, and the stem solid, its cavity being 

 filled with a spongy substance, in which fibres are vaguely dispersed. 



The drugs called Sagapenum and Assafcctida were supposed to oe 

 produced by species of this genus, but by which in particular it was 

 not known with certainty. Dr. Falconer has shown that AssafoDtida at 

 least is produced by another genus, which he calls A'orlAu-. [ X AKTIIKX.] 



P. Auafaliila in fuund in only two districts of Persia, namely, 

 the fields and mountains of Herat, the capital of Khorassan, and the 

 range of mountains in the province of Lar (Laristan), extending from 

 the river Cur as far as the town of Congoon, along the coast of tin- 

 Persian Qulf. Kreiupfer states that even here the plants do not 

 always yield the drug ; that it is only those of the desert near i 

 and of the mountains round Disguuu in Laristan that furnish it ; and 

 he figures a plant, with a naked simple stem, clothed with leafless 

 sheaths, umbels without involucre, a coarse woody root rising above 

 the ground, and pinnated leaves with pinnatifid segments and oblong 

 obtuse lobes. This plant is the Ferula Auaftrtida of Limucua and 

 De Caudolle ; what is supposed to be it has since been met with in 

 BeloochisUn, and Lieutenant Burnea saw what he calls Auafittitla 

 growing in great luxuriance in the mountains of Hiudu-Koosh at an 

 elevation of 7000 feet He states that it is an annual, and grows to 

 the height of 8 or 10 feet, when it withers and decays. The milk 

 which it exudes is first white, and then turns yellow and hardens, iu 

 which state it U put iu hair bags and exported. Sheep browse upon 

 the tender shoots, which are believed to be highly nutritious. 

 (' Travels,' ii. 243.) It is however by no means certain that this was 

 true Assofootida. Indeed if it was, as Lieutenant Burnes states, an 

 annual, it must have been some other plant ; for Kicmpfer expressly 

 describes the root of Hingiscb, or Assafactida, as " ad plures anuos 

 restibilem, magnam, ponderosam, uudam," and in fact it is from 

 wounds in this root that the gum-resin flows. It is probable that 

 Assafcctida is yielded by different plants. Professor Koylc obtained 

 seeds of two kinds from the bazaar of India ; and it appears from a 

 communication made to Mr. Macueill from a medical gentleman at 

 Soomeeana in Beloochistan, that in that province a kind of ferula called 

 Hooehee yields a similar product, which however is not collected. 



The F. Auafcclida is said to arrive at as great an age as man himself, 

 and in consequence its roots sometimes attain a considerable siee. It 

 is from wounds in this part that the drug is obtained. The roots are 

 not wounded before they are four years old ; the greater their age the 

 better the quality of their produce. There were four operations each 

 year when Kicmpfer visited the country ; the first in the middle of 

 April, the second at the latter end of May, the third ten days later, 

 and the fourth iu the beginning of July. The gatherers on the first 

 occasion only cleared the hard sandy or stony soil away from the root 

 to the depth of a span or so, pulling off the leaves, replacing the earth 

 about the roots, and then heaping the leaves on them, pressing them 

 down with a stone. On the subsequent occasions they slice the 

 roots transversely, beginning n little below the top, and collecting the 

 juice that flows from the wounds. After every operation they cover 

 the root with the old leaves to screcu it from the sun. After the 

 last gathering the screens are thrown away and the roots are left to 

 perish. Dr. Falconer believes his Narthex Assafootida to be identical 

 with Kicmpfer's plant 



F. Periica, a perennial species with a glaucous stem and supradc- 

 compound leaves with linear cut segments, has been reported to yield 

 as&afootida. Dr. Hope entertained this opinion, from which Nees and 

 Ebermaier do not dissent Treviranus found it yielding a substance 

 extremely like assafcotida in the botanic garden of Breslau ; and the 

 same thing has often occurred in the Apothecaries' Garden at 

 Chelsea. Nevertheless, Fee suspects, after Willdenow, that it is 

 rather the origin of sagapenum. Olivier believed it to produce gum 

 ammoniacum ; but according to Professor Don that drug is yielded by 

 his Dorema ammoniacum. 



F. oriental!* has also been quoted as the source of gum 

 ammoniacum ; and it appears that such a substance is really pro- 

 duced, either by that plant or a nearly allied species, in the empire of 

 Marocco. 



F. ferulago has been taken for the plant which furnishes galba- 

 num ; but Professor Don states that this drug is really yielded by 

 quite a different genus, called by him tialbanum officinale. [AssAK< . 

 in ARTS and Sc. Div.] 



KKUUSSI'NA, a genus established by M. Grateloup for a Fossil 

 Turbinated Shell from Dax, which seems at first view very near the 

 Anoitomata, but which M. Grateloup thinks, from the examination of 

 its aperture, approximates more to the Cyclottomata, an opinion in 

 which M. Kaug concurs, adding that the species, three or four, are all 

 fossil. 



Animal unknown. Shell oval, globuloua ; aperture round, borden-il, 

 oblique, simple, toothless, "retournoo du cot<S de laspire;" umbilicus 

 more or less large ; operculum (?). 



raSOT I :-OUASS. [FESTUCA.] 



I'KSTU'CA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order of 

 Grasses, containing several species of agricultural importance. It is 

 known among British Grasses by having many-flowered opikelets, 

 the lower paletc of which are neither awned as in Ilromu*, nor blunt 

 as in Pun and its allies, but terminated gradually in a hard Hlmrp 

 point 



/". prateniii, or Meadow Fescue, is about three feet high, with a 

 nearly upright branched 1 -sided |>onicle and broad coarse leaves. It 



