DAP 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



DAP 



433 



tlower, succeeded by yellow berries ; the other with peach- 

 coloured flowers and red fruit ; the latter has sometimes 

 flowers of a much deeper red. There is also a variety with 

 variegated leaves; the flowers of which appear in February 

 and March, and even in January, when the season is mild ; the 

 berries will be ripe in June, if theybe not previously devoured 

 by birds. Villars mentions another variety, with the leaves 

 a little villose, or having small hairs at their base, and the 

 flowers four together : he remarks, that the parts of fructifi- 

 cation are so perfectly formed the year before the flowers un- 

 fold themselves, that the character maybe easily determined 

 by the naked eye. Mezereon is a native of Lapland, Sweden, 

 Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France, Carmola, Savoy, 

 Piedmont, nd great Britain. Mr. Miller is the first who de- 

 clared it to be a native of our island, namely, near Andover in 

 Hampshire; since that it has been found at Laxfield, in Suf- 

 folk ; in Selborn-hanger, Hants ; and frequently observed in the 

 beech-woods of Buckinghamshire. As it has escaped all our 

 old herbarists, and even the indefatigable Ray and his imme- 

 diate successors ; and birds are remarkably fond of the berries, 

 there is reason to suspect that they may have disseminated 

 this beautiful shrub ; unless we can suppose that it remained 

 unnoticed, on account of its flowering before the time at 

 which the herbarists sally out upon their vernal excursions. 

 Gerarde informs us, that he had plenty thereof for his garden 

 from Elbing in Poland : he calls it German Olive-spurge, or 

 Spurge-olive, Spurge-flax, and Dwarf-bay, and says that the 

 Dutch call it Mezereon. Parkinson calls it Dwarf-bay, or 

 Flowering-spurge : the Germans have named it kellerhals,kel- 

 lerbere, kellerkraut, &c. the Dutch, peperboompje ; the Danes, 

 kielderhals ; the Swedes, kMkrhals ; the French, laureate 

 gentiile or femelle, bois gentil, bois joli ; the Italians, laureola 

 in, dafnoide, camelea, calmolea, biondella ; the Spaniards, 

 laureola htmbra ; the Portuguese, loireolafemca, or mezereo 

 major ; and the Russians, woltschje-luke. The branches 

 afford a good yellow dye. The whole of this vegetable is 

 extremely acrid, especially when fresh, and, if retained in the 

 mouth, excites great heat and inflammation, particularly of 

 the throat and fauces : the berries, when swallowed, prove 

 apowerful poison, not only to man, but to many quadrupeds. 

 A woman gave only twelve of the berries to her daughter, 

 who laboured under a quartan ague, and she, after vomit- 

 ing a good deal of blood, expired immediately. Both the 

 bark and the berries of Mezereon, in different forms, have 

 been long used externally in cases of obstinate ulcers, and 

 ill-conditioned sores. In France, the bark is used as an 

 application to the skin, which, under certain circumstances, 

 produces a serous discharge without blistering, and is thus 

 rendered very useful in chronic cases of a local nature, an- 

 swering the purpose of what is called a perpetual blister, 

 while it occasions less pain and inconvenience. In England, 

 the Mezereon has been principally employed in syphilitic 

 cases ; and in this way, Dr. Donald Monro was the first who 

 testified its efficacy in the successful use of the Lisbon diet- 

 drink. Several cases were afterwards published by Dr. Rus- 

 sel, then physician to St. Thomas's hospital, fully establishing 

 the utility of the bark of Mezereon, in venereal nodes. In the 

 above cases, the decoction of the root was made use of, but 

 it has been found necessary in some cases to join with it a 

 solution of sublimate. Dr. Cullen informs us, that Dr. Home 

 has not only found the decoction of Mezereon to cure schir- 

 rhous tumours, which remain after the lues venerea, and after 

 the use of mercury, but that it has also healed them when 

 proceeding from other causes. The considerable and long- 

 continued heat and irritation that is produced in the throat 

 when Mezereon is chewed, induced Dr. Withering to give it 

 VOL. i. 3~. 



in a case of difficulty of swallowing, apparently the effect of a 

 paralytic affection : the patient was directed to chew a thin 

 slice of the root as often as she could bear to do it, and in 

 about two months she recovered her power of swallowing : 

 she had suffered the above complaint upwards of three years, 

 and was greatly reduced,being totally unable to swallow solids, 

 and liquids but very imperfectly. An ointment prepared from 

 the bark or the berries has been found serviceable to sore ulcers. 

 A decoction made of a drachm of the bark of the root, in 

 three pints of water till one pint is wasted, and this quantity 

 taken daily for a considerable time together, has been found 

 very efficacious in resolvingand dispersing venereal swellings 

 and excrescences. Dr. Russel prescribes two drachms of the 

 Mezereon and half an ounce of Liquorice-root, boiled with 

 three pints of water to a quart : four to eight ounces of this 

 decoction to be given four times a day. The bark of the root, 

 says Hill, or the inner bark of the branches, is to be used, but 

 it requires caution in the administration, and must only be. 

 given to persons of robust constitutions, and even to them very 

 sparingly, for if it be given in too large a dose, or at all to a 

 weakly person, it will cause vomiting and bloody stools ; but 

 to the robust it acts only as a brisk purge, and is excellent 

 in dropsies and other stubborn disorders ; a light infusion is 

 the safest and most efficacious mode of giving it. Mezereon 

 is propagated by seeds, which should be sown on a border 

 exposed to the east, soon after the berries become ripe ; for if 

 they be not sown till the springfollowing, they often miscarry, 

 and always remain a year in the ground before the plants 

 appear ; whereas those which are sown in August will grow 

 the following spring, so that a year is saved ; and these never 

 fail. When the plants come up, they will require no other 

 care, but to keep them clean from weeds ; and if the plants 

 be not too close together, they may continue in the seed-bed 

 to have the growth of two summers, especially if they do not 

 make great progress the first year; then at Michaelmas, when 

 the leaves are shedding, they should be carefully taken up, 

 so as not to break or bruise their roots, and planted into a 

 nursery, about sixteen inches row from row, and eight or 

 nine inches asunder in the rows. In this nursery they may 

 remain two years, by which time they will De fit to remove 

 to the places where they are designed to remain for good. 

 The best season to transplant these trees is in autumn, for as 

 these plants begin to vegetate very early in the spring, it is 

 hazardous to transplant them in that season. They grow best 

 in a light, dry, sandy earth, but become mossy, and make little 

 progress, in cold wet lands, so that upon such soils they are 

 small, and produce but few flowers. Notwithstanding tin- 

 berries of this tree are so very acrid as to burn the mouth 

 and throat of those who may incautiously taste them, yet the 

 birds greedily devour them as soon as they begin to ripen , 

 so that unless the shrubs be covered with nets to preserve 

 the berries, they will all be destroyed before they are fit to 

 gather. The Mezereon is a very ornamental shrub in gar- 

 dens, flowering before others, very early in the spring ; and 

 when there are plenty of them growing together, perfuming 

 the air. to a considerable distance. 



2. Daphne Thymela;a. Flowers sessile, axillary ; leaves 

 lanceolate; stems very simple. This plant rises to the height 

 of three or four feet, with a single stalk, covered with a light- 

 coloured bark ; the flowers come out in clusters on the sides 

 of the stalk, and being of an herbaceous colour, make but 

 little appearance. They come forth early in the spring, and 

 are succeeded by small berries, which ure yellowish when 

 ripe. Native of Spain, Italy, and the south of France. Vahl 

 found it in great abundance, on the confines of New Castile. 

 This species, together with the fifth and tw elf th, are hardy 

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