CLASS XIV. ORDER I.] STACHYS. 819 



lower leaves are numerous, on long channeled footstalks, the upper 

 very distant, and on short ones. Inflorescence crowded sessile whorled 

 flowers, in an interrupted or dense oblong terminal spike. Flowers 

 numerous. Calyx ovate, ten ribbed, hairy, the teeth equal, bristle or 

 awn-shaped, hairy. Bracleas narrow, lanceolate, about as long as the 

 calyx, ciliated. Corolla with a long cylindrical pink tube, downy, and 

 curved downwards from below the middle, the lips deep pink, or purple, 

 the upper lip ascending, concave, entire or notched, the lower reflexed, 

 three-cleft, the lateral lobes short, oblong, obtuse, the middle one ovate, 

 more or less crenated or toothed. Stamens scarcely longer than the 

 tube. Anthers two valved, smooth. 



Habitat. Woods, thickets, and shady places ; common. 



Perennial ; flowering in July and August. 



The leaves and stem, when bruised, have an agreeable but weak 

 smell, and are of a slight warm aromatic bitter and astringent taste ; 

 the roots are much more powerful than the herbage, having a very 

 bitter nauseous taste, producing, when taken even in small doses, 

 vomiting and purging. Perhaps few plants have had a greater reputa- 

 tion for many properties than Betony, but like many others which 

 the old physicians so loudly extolled, it has fallen into almost entire 

 disuse. The powdered leaves and stem are occasionally used as an 

 ingredient in sternutatory powders, for the purpose of exciting sneez- 

 ing, or are smoked like tobacco. To enumerate the many forms which 

 are given for the administration of this plant, and the number of the 

 diseases which it was useful in curing, or thought to have been so, 

 would be a task useless, it is true, but still curious ; for in the history of 

 plants, and the application of them to the purposes of life, we may read 

 the progress which was making in the cultivation of the mind of man, 

 and see the foundations upon which the superstructures of science are 

 erected. Upon the virtues of this plant Antonius Musa, physician to the 

 Emperor Augustus, wrote a volume, in which he states it to be a remedy 

 of infinite virtue for no less than forty-seven disorders. Hence has 

 arisen the Italian proverb, " Tu hai pui virtu, che la Betonica" You 

 have more virtues than Betony. 



GENUS XII. STA'CHYS LINN. Wound-wort. 



Nat. Ord. LAIUAT'E^E. Jess. 



GEN. CHAR. Calyx suh-campanulate, ten ribbed, with fire nearly 

 equal teeth. Corolla with the upper lip concave, entire, the lower 

 one three-cleft, the two lateral ones reflexed, the middle one 

 obovate or obcordate, the tube with a hairy ring inside. Name 

 from <TT(*XVS, a spike ; so called from the form of the inflo- 

 rescence. 



