n FAMILY HERBAL. 



The Co9TUs Plant. Costus. 



AN Indian plant, which bears two kinds of stalk*, 

 one for the leaves, and the othe; for the flowers and 

 seeds ; these both rise from the same root, and oftea 

 near one another. 



The leaf-stalks are four feet high, thick, hollow, 

 round, upright, and of a reddish colour. 



The leaves are like those of the reed kind, long, 

 narrow, and pointed at the edges, and they are of 

 a bluish green colour. The stalks which bear the 

 flowers, are eight inches high, tender, soft, round, 

 and as it were scaly. The flowers are small and 

 reddish, and they stand in a kind of spikes, inter- 

 mixed with a great quantity of scaly leaves. 



The root is the only part used ; it is kept by our 

 druggists ; it is oblong and irregularly shaped. It is 

 a very good and safe diuretic, it always operates 

 that way, sometimes also by sweat and it opens 

 obstructions of the viscera. But unless it be new 

 and firm, it has no virtue. 



The Cotton Tree. Gossypium sive xylon. 



A SMALL shrub, with brittle and numerous 

 branches, and yellow flowers : it does not grow 

 more than four feet high ; the leaves are large, and 

 divided each into five parts ; and of a dusky green 

 colour The flowers are large and beantiful, they 

 are of the hell-fashioned kind, as broad as a half 

 crown, deep, < i a yellow colour, and with a purple 

 bottom; the seed-vessels are large, and of a roundish 

 figure, and ihey contain the cotton with the seeds 

 among it. When ripe, they burst open into three or 

 four parts. 



The seeds are used in medicine, hut not so 

 jnnch as they deserve ; they are excellent in coughs* 



