116 



A R B 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



ARC 



seed. Gather the fruit when perfectly ripe, which is from the 

 middle of November till the end of December, and mix it 

 with dry sand, to preserve it until the time of sowing. The 

 surest way of raising the plant, is to sow the seed in pots in 

 December, plunging them into an old bed of tanner's bark 

 which has lost its heat, and covering the bed with glasses. 

 It' the seeds be good, the plants will come up in the beginning 

 of April, and must be often, but sparingly watered, and kept 

 free from weeds. During the first summer shade them 

 from the heat of the day, and in the beginning of October 

 transplant them singly into small pots filled with light earth. 

 When they are two or three feet high, in April following, 

 shake them out of the pots, and replant them, with balls of 

 earth about their roots, into the open ground where they 

 are to remain. This tree delights in a moist soil, seldom 

 producing much fruit in a dry ground. 



2. Arbutus Laurifolia; Laurel- leaved Strawberry Tree. 

 Stem arborescent ; leaves oblong, acuminate at both ends, 

 sharply serrate, smooth ; racemes axillary, one-ranked, ses- 

 sile, solitary. Native of North America. 



3. Arbutus Andrachne ; Oriental Strawberry Tree. Stem 

 arboreous ; leaves oval, quite entire, and serrate ; panicles 

 pubescent, erect. A middle-sized tree. Common in Crete, 

 and between Aleppo and Antioch. 



4. Arbutus Ferruginea ; Long-flowered Strawberry Tree. 

 Stem arborescent ; leaves oblong, obtuse, smooth, quite 

 entire ; racemes terminal. Found in America. 



5. Arbutus Mucronata; Pointed-leaved Strawberry Tree. 

 Stem shrubby ; leaves alternate, ovate, serrate, pointed ; pe- 

 duncles axillary, one-flowered. This is a very stiff shrub ; 

 found in Terra del Fuego. . . 



6. Arbutus Pumila ; Dwarf Strawberry Tree. Stems dif- 

 fused ; leaves alternate, distich, oblong, quite entire ; flowers 

 lateral, solitary. A low shrub with nodding flowers; a 

 native of Terra del Fuego. 



7. Arbutus Acadiensis ; Acadian Strawberry Tree. Stems 

 procumbent ; leaves ovate, subserrate ; flowers scattered ; 

 berries many-seeded. It never produces fruit in England ; 

 but grows naturally upon swampy land in Acadia, and other 

 northern parts of America. 



8. Arbutus Alpina ; Black-berried Alpine Arbutus. Stems 

 procumbent ; leaves rugose, serrate. This is a very common 

 plant in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Dauphiny, Savoy, 

 Siberia, and many of the Highlands of Scotland ; flowering 

 in May, in a dry barren soil. 



9. Arbutus Uva Ursi ; Berry-bearing or Trailing Arbutus. 

 Stems procumbent ; leaves quite entire. This shrub abounds 

 in most parts of the continent, and in heathy, mountainous, 

 and rocky places, throughout the Highlands ; also, near Ilex- 

 ham, in Northumberland. The leaves have been greatly ce- 

 lebrated as a remedy in stony and gravelly complaints. The 

 dose is half a drachm of the powder of the leaves, every morn- 

 ing, or twice or thrice daily.. De Haen relates, after great 

 experience of this medicine in the hospital of Vienna, that 

 suppurations, though obstinate and of long continuance, in 

 the kidneys, ureter, bladder, urethra, scrotum, and perineum, 

 where there was no venereal taint, nor marks of calculi, were 

 in general completely cured by it ; that even of those who had a 

 manifest calculus, several found permanent relief, so that long 

 after the medicine had been left off, they continued free from 

 pain or inconvenience in making water, though the catheter 

 shewed that the calculus still remained: that others, who seem- 

 ed to be cured, relapsed on leaving off the medicine, and were 

 several times successively relieved by again repeating its use ; 

 while others obtained from it only temporary and precarious 

 relief, the complaints being often as severe during the ope- 



ration of the medicine as when it was not used. The trials 

 made of it in this country have not answered the general ex- 

 pectation. Some have had their complaints entirely removed, 

 others have thought them aggravated by it. But though it 

 frequently fails of performing a cure in those dreadful mala- 

 dies, stone, gravel, &c. it many times alleviates the symp- 

 toms, and procures intervals of ease when all other means are 

 ineffectual ; which is a matter of no small moment, and cer- 

 tainly entitles it to some notice. It is probably not superior 

 upon the whole to other vegetable astringents, some of which 

 have long been successfully used by the country people in 

 gravelly complaints, although they arc not noticed by medi- 

 cal practitioners. Whatever may be the ultimate decision 

 as to its medical qualities, the whole plant is certainly very 

 serviceable in dyeing an ash-colour, but particularly in tan- 

 ning leather. In this view it well deserves attention in those 

 countries, the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland for 

 instance, where whole mountains are covered with this trail- 

 ing shrub. The berries, which are red, and of the size of 

 those of the Holly, are food for grouse and other game. 



10. Arbutus Thyniifolia ; Thyme-leaved Arbutus. Stems 

 procumbent ; leaves oval, acute, obscurely serrate, strigose 

 underneath ; flowers axillary, eight stamined. Very abun- 

 dant in the swamps of North America ; where the berries are 

 used for tarts and other kinds of pastry, for which purpose 

 the London confectioners import and employ them ; but they 

 are inferior to cranberries of our own growth. 



Arbutus, Trailing. See Epigtta. 



Archangel. See Lamium. 



Archangel, Battm-leaved. See Melittis. 



Archangel, Yellow. See Galeopsis. 



Arctium ; a genus of the class Syngencsia, order Polyga- 

 mia yEqualis. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix : common glo- 

 bular, imbricate ; scales lanceolate, ending in long subulate 

 prickles, reflex and toothed at the end. Corolla-, compound 

 tubular, uniform ; corollules hermaphrodite, equal ; proper 

 monopetalous, tubular; tube slender, very long ; limb ovate, 

 quinquefid ; divisions linear, equal. Stamina: filamenta five, 

 capillary, short; anthera cylindric, tubular, the length of the 

 corolla," five-toothed. Pistil: germen oblong, with a villose 

 top; style filiform, longer than the stamina ; stigma bifid, 

 reflex. Pericarp -. none. Calix : converging. Seeds : solitary, 

 vertically pyramidal, with the two opposite anglesobliterated, 

 gibbous on the outside ; down simple, shorter than the seed. 

 Receptacle : chaffy, flat ; chaffs setaceous. ESSENTIALCHARAC- 

 TKR. Calix: globular; the scales furnished at the end with 

 inflected hooks. These plants are readily increased by 

 seeds, but will not flower till the second year, and the roots 

 decay when the seeds are perfected. The species are, 



1. Arctium Lappa ; Common Hurdock, Burr, or I'latburr. 

 Leaves alternate, large, rough, undulated; root biennial; stem 

 three feet high ; corolla purple, with a white tube. It is very 

 common by road-sides, on rubbish , and ditch-banks, through- 

 out Europe, flowering in July and August ; it also abounds in 

 Japan. In England, few animals except the ass will touch 

 it ; birds feed upon the seeds; and snails, slups :>.:id some 

 sorts of caterpillars, on the leaves. Tin- stems are eatable, if 

 stripped of their rind before the flow'ers appear, cither boiled 

 or raw, with oil and vinegar. Some excellent physicians think 

 a decoction of the root equal if not superior to that of Xir- 

 saparilla. Two ounces of the dried root are boiled in three 

 pints of water till one pint is wasted, and ;i pint or more of 

 this liquid is taken warm every day. A strong infusion of 

 the root operates powerfully by urine, and is good in the 

 jaundice and dropsy. The decoction above mentioned is 

 also serviceable in the gravel, stone in the kidneys, and blad- 



