CENTAUREA AMERICANA. 



AMERICAN CENTAUREA. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSITyE. 



CENTAUREA AMERICANA, NuttalL— Stem erect, silicate, sparingly branched; lower leaves 

 oblong-ovate, repand-dentate, upper ones lanceolate, acute, all sessile and glabrous; 

 heads few or solitary, very large; pedicel thickened at the summit; ray flowers twice 

 longer than the disk ; scales with a pectinate-pinnate, reflexed appendage. Stems two to 

 four feet high, with large, showy, pale-purple heads. Appendages straw color. (Wood's 

 Class- Book of Botany.) 



UR text-books tell us that " Centaureawas so named from 

 Chiron, the centaur, who first discovered the medical 

 virtues of the plant." It may be remarked here that ancient 

 history is so mixed — that which may be true confused with that 

 which is mere fancy— that we are liable to take the whole of 

 ancient history as of litde account. As we generally understand 

 the "centaur" we have the fable of Ovid in mind, wherein the 

 daughter of a goddess in pity is changed into Enippe— half 

 woman, half horse — in company with the half-beast centaur 

 already existing,— but it appears from those who have made 

 ancient history a study that certain Thessalonians first tamed 

 horses so as to ride upon them, and thus appeared to their 

 frightened neighbors, who observed them at a distance, as beings 

 who were part horses and part men. Out of this it is supposed 

 the fables come. One of these Thessalonians, "a centaur" 

 named Chiron, was seriously wounded by Hercules; but by the 

 discovery of the healing virtues of some plant he saved his life. 

 This Chiron appears to have been a veritable personage, but the 

 plant he found is a sort of gentian, referred to by Breyne, who 

 wrote a work called "Centuria Plantarum," in 1678, as Chironia, 



{69) 



