UMBELLIFERjE. CLVIII. CONIUM. CLIX. VICATIA. CLX. ARRACACIIA. 



377 



Hayn. arz. gew. 1. t. SI. Sowerb. engl. hot. t. 1191. Jacq. 

 austr. 2. t. 156. Woodv. med. hot. t. 22. Flench, icon. t. 183. 

 Cicuta maculata, Lam. fl. fr. 3. p. 104. Cicuta major, Lam. 

 diet. 2. p. 3. Coriandrum Cicuta, Crantz, austr. 24. Coriandrum 

 maculatum, Roth, fl. germ. 1. p. 130. Cicuta, Hall. helv. no. 

 766. Riv. pent. irr. 75. Blackw. t. 451. Lob. icon. 732. f. 1. 

 Cicuta domestica, Mor. umb. 18. c. b. sect. 9. t. 6. f. 1. C6- 

 nium tenuif61ium, Mill. diet. no. 2. Stem hollow, green, but 

 often of a livid colour, marked with dark spots. Hemlock is 

 obviously distinguished from all other umbelliferous plants by 

 its spotted stem, by the dark and shining green colour of the 

 bottom leaves, and particularly by their disagreeable smell when 

 bruised. According to Linnaeus, sheep eat the leaves, and 

 horses, cows, and goats refuse it. Ray informs us, that the 

 thrush will feed upon the seeds even when corn is to be had. 

 Hemlock has been stigmatised as one of the most noxious of 

 vegetable poisons, has for many years been considered as a 

 highly useful and powerful article of the Materia Medica, and 

 it has been proved that though highly deleterious when impru- 

 dently used, yet in small doses it has been productive of consi- 

 derable benefit in cases which have resisted the usual methods. 

 The first physician who endeavoured to bring hemlock into repute 

 as a medicine was Baron Stoerck, of Vienna, who announced its 

 extraordinary effects in the most inveterate chronic disorders in 

 1760. The whole plant is a virulent poison, but varying very 

 much in strength, according to circumstances. When taken in 

 an over-dose, it produces vertigo, dimness of sight, difficulty of 

 speech, nausea, fetid eructations, anxiety, tremors, and paralysis 

 of the limbs. But Dr. Stoerck found that in small doses it may 

 be taken in great safety, and that, without at all disordering the 

 constitution, or even producing any sensible operation, it some- 

 times proves a powerful remedy in many obstinate disorders. 

 In scirrhus, the internal and external use of hemlock has been 

 found useful, but mercury has been generally used at the same 

 time. In open cancer it often abates the pain, and is free from 

 the constipating effects of opium. It is likewise used in 

 scrofulous tumours, and in other ill-conditioned ulcers. It is 

 also recommended by some in chin-cough, and various other 

 diseases. Its most common and best form is that of the powdered 

 leaves, in the dose at first of 2 or 3 grains a day, which in some 

 cases has been gradually increased to upwards of 2 ounces a day. 

 An extract from the seeds is said to produce giddiness sooner 

 than that from the leaves. 



Hemlock should not be gathered unless its peculiar smell be 

 strong. The leaves should be collected in the month of June, 

 when the plant is in flower. The leaflets should be picked off, 

 and the footstalks thrown away. The leaflets are then to be 

 dried quickly in a hot sun, or rather on tin plates before a fire, 

 and preserved in bags of strong brown paper, or powdered and 

 kept in close vessels, excluded from the light ; for the light soon 

 dissipates their green colour, and with it the virtues of the medi- 

 cine. The narcotic seeds are most active and uniform when 

 perfectly ripe. When the fresh root is wounded, it yields a bit- 

 ter and acrid juice, which Stoerck found to excite in the tongue 

 swelling, stiffness, violent pain, and transient paralysis. Pfaff is 

 of opinion, that the virtues of the hemlock reside in a volatile 

 principle, which, however, he was not able to obtain separate. 

 Dr. Paris says, that the medicinal activity of the plant resides in 

 a resinous element, which may be obtained in an insulated form 

 by evaporating an etherial tincture made with the leaves on the 

 surface of water. It has a rich dark green colour, and tastes 

 of hemlock in perfection. A dose of half a grain will produce 

 vertigo and headache. 



Var. |3, strialum (Tratt. arch. 1. t. 24.) stem diffuse, much 

 branched, very straight ; umbels and umbellules proliferous. 



VOL. III. 



$ . H. Native of Hungary, at the river Leitha, Schultes, syst. 

 6. p. 655. 



jS/>o^<?rf-stemmed or Common Hemlock. Fl. June, July. Brit. 

 PI. 4 to 6 feet. 



2 C. CROA'TICUM (Waldst. et Kit. in Willd. enum. p. 305.) 

 leaves of involucels linear, equal in length to the umbellules or 

 exceeding them. $ . H. Native of Croatia. According to 

 Kittnbail and Willd. this is a distinct species ; but it is only a 

 variety of the preceding according to Schultes, Koch, and Host. 

 The cultivated plant is hardly to be distinguished from the 

 common species, unless in its more glaucous hue. 



Croatian Hemlock. Fl. June, July. Clt. 1818. PI. 5 to 

 6 feet. 



Cult. The seeds only require to be sown in the open ground 

 in autumn. 



CLIX. VICATIA (named after M. Vicat, who has wrote 

 upon poisonous plants). D. C. prod. 4. p. 243. Slson species, 

 Wall. 



LIN. SYST. Pentandria, Digynia. Margin of calyx entire. 

 Petals unknown. Styles short, at length diverging. Fruit 

 ovate-oblong. Mericarps almost semi-terete, with 5 filiform 

 ribs : and broad flat furrows containing many small vittae each ; 

 commissure narrow. Carpophore thick, rather bifid at the apex. 

 Albumen furnished with a furrow in the commissure, convex on 

 the outside. A glabrous erect herb, native of Nipaul. Leaves 

 petiolate, bipinnate ; leaflets bipinnatifid : lobes linear, acute, 

 slender. Stems sparingly leafy at the base ; the rest naked. 

 Umbels terminal, without any involucrum, of many rays ; rays 

 unequal, umbellules of the shorter ones sterile. Involucels want- 

 ing, or very small, and of few leaves. Habit of Cbnium, but the 

 character is near that of Arracaclia. Fruit almost like that of 

 the genus Pimpinella, but differs in the seed being curved. 



1 V. CONIIFOLIA (D. C. prod. 4. p. 243.) T. ? H. Native of 

 Nipaul, at Kamaon. Slson ? coniifolium, Wall. mss. Herb 1-' 

 foot high. Leaves a foot long, of a thin membranous consis- 

 tence. 



Hemlock-leaved Vicatia. PI. 1^- foot. 



Cult. This plant will grow in any soil or situation, and will 

 be easily propagated by seed. 



CLX. ARRACA'CHA (the name of the plant by the Spa- 

 niards of South America). Bancr. in gart. dir. p. 382. ex 

 Linnaaa. litt. 1829. p. 13. D. C. in bibl. univ. 1829. Jan. p. 74. 

 prod. 4. p. 243. C6nium species of authors. 



LIN. SYST. Pentandria, Digynia. Margin of calyx obso- 

 lete. Petals lanceolate or ovate, entire, with an inflexed point, 

 curved above the middle nerve. Stylopodium conical, thick ; 

 styles diverging, at length reflexed. Fruit ovate-oblong, some- 

 what compressed from the sides ; mericarps with 5 equal, not 

 crenulated ribs : lateral ribs marginating ; vittae many in the 

 furrows. Albumen nearly semi-terete, furnished with a furrow 

 in the commissure. Perennial South American herbs, of a salu- 

 brious quality. Roots tuberous, thick, edible. Leaves pinnate 

 or bipinnate : leaflets deeply toothed, lower ones tripartite. Um- 

 bels opposite the leaves or terminal. Involucrum wanting or of 

 one leaf ; involucels of 3 leaves. Flowers polygamous; those 

 of the rays hermaphrodite, and those of the disk male or imper- 

 fect. Petals white. This genus is nearly allied to Cbnium, but 

 differs in the form of the petals, and in the ribs of the fruit being 

 entire, not undulately crenulated. 



1 A. ESCULE'NTA (D. C. prod. 4. p. 244.) leaves pinnate ; 

 leaflets 5, broadly ovate, acuminated, deeply pinnatifid, pro- 

 foundly serrated : the 2 lower leaflets petiolate, subternate ; in- 

 volucrum wanting ; ribs of fruit obtuse. If. . F. Native of 

 3 C 



