24O 



CAN 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



CAN 



seed ; and that it will not abide the extremities of our 

 winters, unless it meet with a stove or hot-house, such 

 as are used in Germany, for neither house nor cellar 

 will preserve it. Clusius saw it flowering by house-sides 

 in Spain and Portugal : and says that the inhabitants there 

 use the seeds for making their rosaries. It is found wild 

 within the tropics on all continents. 



2. Canna Angustifolia; Narrow-leaved Indian Reed. Leaves 

 lanceolate, petioled, nerved. This can hardly be distin- 

 guished from the first species, but is nevertheless lower and 

 narrower. It is found within the tropics of America, in 

 shady and boggy places. 



3. Canna Glauca. Leaves lanceolate, petiolate, nerveless. 

 The roots of this are much larger than the former sorts, 

 and strike down strong fleshy fibres deep in the ground ; 

 the stalks rise seven or eight feet high; the leaves are nearly 

 two feet long, narrow, smooth, and of a sea-green colour ; 

 the flowers are produced in short thick spikes at the extre- 

 mity, are large, and of a pale yellow colour ; the segments 

 of the petal are broad, but their shape like those of the other 

 sorts. Native of New Spain. The young plants of this spe- 

 cies, when raised from seeds, are more certain of flowering 

 fhan the old ones, for their roots send out many offsets, 

 which when they have room soon spread to a considerable 

 distance, but seldom produce flowers. It is, therefore, the 

 best way to raise a succession of plants from seeds, and to 

 throw out the old ones after they have perfected their seeds. 



4. Canna Flaccida. Leaves narrow, lanceolate, smooth 

 and even on both sides ; inner limb of the corolla five-cleft ; 

 segments flaccid, obovate, the outmost largest. Four feet high 

 or more, very much resembling the preceding in the herb, 

 with which it is often confounded in our stoves. Native of 

 South America. 



5. Oanna Juncea. Leaves linear, nerved. The leaves 

 resemble those of grass, with five raised nerves, sheathing 

 at the base, near the root covered with capillary fibres, a span 

 or a foot in length ; scape with several lanceolate sheaths and 

 few flowers; corolla small, of a dusky rufous colour; peri- 

 carp muricatetl. It was discovered by Bladh in China. 



Cannabis ; a genus of the class Dioecia, order Pentandria. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Males. Calix: perianth five-parted; 

 leaflets oblong, acuminate, obtuse, concave. Corolla: none. 

 Stamina -. filamenta five, capillary very short ; antherse ob- 

 long, four-cornered. Female. Calix : perianth one-leafed, 

 oblong, acuminate, gaping longitudinally on one side, per- 

 manent. Corolla: none. Pistil: germen very small ; styles 

 two ; subulate, long ; stigmas acute. Pericarp : very small ; 

 calix tightly closed. Seed : nut globose, depressed, bivalve. 

 ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Male. Calix : five-parted. Corolla: 

 none. Female. Calix : one-leafed, entire, gaping on one 

 side. Corolla : none. Styles : two. Nut : bivalve within 

 the closed calix. The only known species of this import- 

 ant genus is, 



1. Cannabis Sativa. Stem generally six feet, sometimes 

 considerably more, branched, hairy, as are also the leaves, 

 which are digitate, slender, serrate ; the folioles seven, the 

 outer ones smallest. In the female, plant the flowers are 

 solitary in the axillas : in the male, they are in thin pendu- 

 lous spikes, at the ends of the stem and branches. Some fe- 

 male flowers are frequently found among the males, and some 

 males among the females. It is not therefore any objection 

 to the sexual system, that female pliints of the Hemp have 

 produced perfect seed, when there have been no mule plants 

 near them. Mr. Miller, however, contradicts this assertion, 

 and declares, that for several years he tried the experiment by 

 removing all the male plants ; when, although the female 



plants continued strong and flourishing, they did not, never- 

 theless, produce any good seeds. It is also worthy of re- 

 mark, that all the old authors, ignorant of the true doctrine 

 of the sexes, and blind followers of the ancients, have fallen 

 into an egregious mistake upon this subject, for they invari- 

 ably call the male plants female, and the female male. It is 

 extremely difficult to ascertain the original place of the na- 

 tive growth of Hemp, but the most probable conjecture is 

 that it is a native of the East. Its use and great importance 

 are well known. Huckaback of an excellent quality for 

 towels and table-cloths, and the low-priced hempen cloths 

 which husbandmen, servants, and labouring manufacturers, 

 generally wear, as well as the better sorts for farmers anil 

 tradesmen in the country, are made from it. The finer cloths 

 also, which are seven-eighths wide, and from 2s. 6rf. to 3*. f>d. 

 per yard, are preferred by some gentlemen for their strength 

 and warmth. One advantage they certainly possess over 

 the Irish and other linens ; which is, that their colour 

 improves by wearing, while that of the others decliii;'- 

 English Hemp, properly manufactured, is unrivalled for its 

 strength, and in that respect much superior to the Russian. 

 Considerable quantities of cloth are nevertheless imported 

 from that country for sheeting, merely on account of its 

 strength, which is entirely owing to its being coarser 

 than British linen of the same price ; but our hempen cloth 

 is in reality more durable from the superior quality of the 

 thread, and at the same time lighter in washing. The 

 Hemp raised in England is not of so dry and spongy a na- 

 ture as the Russian, and therefore requires less tar in pro- 

 portion, to manufacture it into cordage. But as tar is 

 cheaper than hemp, the rope-makers prefer foreign hemp 

 to ours, because they obtain a greater profit in working it : 

 but cordage must certainly be stronger in proportion as 

 there is more hemp and less tar in it, provided there be a 

 sufficient quantity of tar to unite the fibres. An oil is ex- 

 tracted from the seeds of hemp, and the seeds themselves are 

 reckoned to be a good food for poultry, being supposed to 

 make them lay a greater number of eggs. Small birds in 

 general are very fond of them, but they should be sparingly 

 given to birds con fined in cages, and alwayg mixed with other 

 seeds. It is recorded, upon unquestionable authority, that 

 the black and yellow feathers of the bulfinch and goldfinch 

 have been sometimes changed to a total blackness by feeding 

 them with hemp-seed alone, or giving them too large a pro- 

 portion of it when mixed with other food. Hemp is called 

 hanf or hampf in German; in Dutch, hennip or kenuip ; in 

 Danish, kamp ; in Swedish hampa ; in French, chancre; in 

 Italian, canapa; in Spanish and Portuguese, canamo; in Rus- 

 sian, konapli, konopel, kanaple; in Polish, kanop; in Illyrian 

 and Sclavonian, konoplija; in Walachian, k<enepe; in Hunga- 

 rian, kender ; in Tartarian, kinder ; in Armenian, kanop; in 

 Arabian, sjarattck; in Persian, cannab ; in Chinese iu fittii. 

 chu-tsao. There is no doubt that the Greeks took their 

 name from the eastern kanop or caanab, and that the plant 

 originally migrated into Europe from those countries, not- 

 withstanding what Pliny and Dioscorides affirm of its grow- 

 ing wild in Europe. Hemp is commonly sown upon a deep 

 rich moist soil, such as is found in the tract called Holland 

 in the county of Lincoln, and the fens of the isle of Ely. 

 where it is cultivated to great advantage ; as it might in 

 other parts of England where there is the same kind of soil. 

 It will not thrive on clay, nor yet on stilT cold land ; but is 

 found to succeed very well after Turnips on friable loams-, 

 and good sands, provided it be well manured. Spaldinj;- 

 moor in Lincolnshire is a barren sand, and yet with proper 

 care and culture it produces as fine hemp as any in England, 



