DIC 





OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



D I D 



453 



arboreous. It flowers during the greater part of the winter ; 

 and was found by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander, in the 

 island of St. Helena. 



2. DTcksonia Culcita ; Shining-leafed Dicksonia. Fronds 

 uperdecompound, smooth ; leaflets serrate. Found in the 

 island of Madeira, where it is called feila brom ; and in the 

 island of San Miguel, one of the Azores. The inhabitants 

 make pillows and cushions of the roots. There is little 

 doubt but that this plant, and the barometz, or Scythian 

 Lamb, are one and the same, though they come from coun- 

 tries so remote. 



Dictamnus; a genus of the class Decandria, order Mono- 

 irynia. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calic ; perianth five-leaved, 

 very small, deciduous; leaflets oblong, acuminate. Corolla: 

 petals live, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, with claws, un- 

 equal, of which two are bent upwards, two placed obliquely 

 t the sides, one bent downwards. Stamina: lilamentaten, 

 subulate, length of the corolla, situated between the two 

 lateral declining petals, unequal: small point-like glands 

 scattered over the filamenta ; anthene four-sided, rising up- 

 wards. Pistil : germen five-cornered, elevated from the 

 receptacle ; style simple, short, bent downwards, incurved ; 

 .stigma sharp, rising upwards. Pericarp : capsules five, 

 conjoined inwardly at the border, compressed, acuminate, 

 with distant tips, two-valved. Seeds: in pairs, ovate, very 

 smooth, within a common aril, which is two-valved, and 

 cut down. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Calix : five. Peliilii 

 five, patulous. Filamenta having glandulous dots scattered 

 over them. Capsule : five, conjoined. The species are, 



1. Dictamnus Albus ; Fraxinella. Leaves pinnate ; stem 

 simple. Root perennial, striking deep into the ground, and 

 the head annually increasing in size; stalks many, two or 

 three feet high, round, here and there slightly grooved, some- 

 times subancipital, not branched, at bottom green and beset 

 with white hairs, ferruginous, red towards the top, with 

 resinous glands ; leaves alternate, the larger above a foot in 

 length, spreading out horizontally, ascending towards the 

 end ; the midrib flat at topand edged on both sides, convex 

 beneath, and hairy ; leaflets from two to five pairs, with an 

 odd one at the end, most of them alternate ; the whole some- 

 what resembling an ash-leaf : flowers in a long pyramidal 

 loose spike or raceme, nine or ten inches in length ; corolla 

 large and handsome, the common natural colour pale purple, 

 with dark purple veins, but varying to white ; filamenta pale 

 purple, concealing the germen and style, ascending or turning 

 up nt the end, glandular, especially at top ; nntherae green; 

 germen covered with pedicelled glands ; style with white 

 hairs ; stigma blunt, dark purple. The whole plant, espe- 

 cially when gently rubbed, emits an odour like that of lemon- 

 peel ; but when bruised, has something of a fine balsamic 

 scent, whichis strongest in the pedicels of the flowers, which 

 are covered with glands of a rusty red colour, exuding a 

 viscid juice or resin, which exhales a highly inflammable 

 vapour, and in a dark place, in hot weather explodes, on the 

 approach of a candle, without injuring it. (ierarde calls it 

 ISuilurd or False Dittany ; and Parkinson, False or Wltite 

 Dittany. It flowers with us at the end of May and in June, 

 and the seeds ripen at the end of September. Native of 

 (iennany, France, Spain, Italy, &c. in shady mountainous 

 places. Its beauty and fine scent should introduce it into 

 every good garden. The roots are the parts chiefly used in 

 medicine, and they are of a cordial sudorific nature, and are 

 good in fevers, and in nervous hysteric complaints. A strong 

 infusion of the young tops is a pleasant and efficacious medi- 

 cine for the gravel : it works powerfully by urine, and gives 

 ease in those colicky pains which so frequently attend that 



VOL. i. 39. 



disorder. It is propagated by seeds, which, if sown in 

 the autumn, soon after they are ripe, the plants will appear 

 the following April; but when they are kept out of the 

 ground till the spring, the seeds seldom succeed ; or if they 

 do grow, it is the following spring before the plants appear, 

 so that a whole year is lost. When the plants come up, they 

 must be constantly kept clean from weeds ; and in the autumn, 

 when their leaves decay, should be carefully taken up, and 

 planted in beds at six inches' distance every way : these beds 

 may be four feet broad, and the paths between them two, 

 that there may be space left for weeding them. The plants 

 may stand two years in these beds, during which time they 

 must be constantly kept clean from weeds ; and if they thrive 

 well, they will be strong enough to flower. In the autumn 

 they should be carefully taken up, and planted in the middle 

 of the borders of the flower-garden, where they will continue 

 thirty or forty years, producing more stems of flowers in 

 proportion to the size of the roots. All the culture these 

 require, is to be kept clean from weeds, and the ground 

 about them dug every winter. 



2. Dictamnus Capensis. Leaves simple ; stem branching. 

 The simple leaves are alternate, and like the leaflets of the 

 preceding ; the raceme is the same in both. Native of the 

 Cape of Good Hope. 



D'ulclta ; a genus of the class Syngenesia, order Poly- 

 gamia Frustranea. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix : com- 

 mon, double, permanent; outer three-leaved or three-parted, 

 utnbilicated at the back ; leaflets cordate, acuminate, much 

 expanded, tomentose-hoary above ; inner placed on the disk 

 of the outer, shorter, composed of eleven or twelve leaflets, 

 which are linear-lanceolate, very acute, serrate, prickly, one- 

 nerved, spreading, five or six, alternately shorter by half than 

 the others, the twelfth often wanting. Corolla: compound, 

 radiated ; corollets hermaphrodite, numerous, shorter than 

 the calix, barren in a deltoid disk, fertile in the outer tri- 

 angles of the receptacle; females eleven or twelve in the 

 ray, each opposite to one of the calicine leaflets, and double 

 the length of the calix; proper in both hermaphrodites 

 funnel-shaped, half five-cleft ; border five-parted, linear, 

 acute, patulous, revolute, brown at the tip ; female ligulate, 

 four or three toothed, three-furrowed, tubular at the base, 

 spreading. Stamina: in both hermaphrodites ; filamenta 

 five, capillary, very short, inserted into the tube ; antherae 

 cylindric, tubular, five-toothed, brown at the tip, the length 

 of the corollet : in the females, the rudiment of one stamen 

 inserted at the top of the tube. Pistil : in the perfect her- 

 maphrodites, germen inferior, immersed in the receptacle, 

 oblong, compressed, crowned with a thin short pappus or 

 down, like the eye-lashes ; style slender, finally standing out; 

 stigma two-parted, subulate, revolute ; in the barren herma- 

 phrodites, germen roundish, very small, immersed ; in other 

 respects as in the fertile ; females scarcely any rudiment of 

 a germen. Receptacle : deltoid, flat, honey-combed, with 

 labyrinthed membranes, distinct, and finally resolvable into 

 four partial deltas or triangles ; the central naked, barren ; 

 the side ones producing seeds, roughened with stiff brown 

 bristles, becoming hard, and in separating from each other 

 forming a pericarp ; nuts three, bony, three-cornered, flatted, 

 stiff, bristly, from the outer triangles of the receptacle gaped 

 and hardened, each retaining an outer leaf and the opposite 

 inner calicine leaflets, or one-third part of the calix, and 

 many-celled. Seeds : small kernels, as many as there were 

 germina, but some abortive, oblong ; down simple, thin, 

 short, stiffer than in the flower. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER* 

 Calix: expanding, outer leafy. ' Receptacle : honey-combed.' 

 dividing into many parts which retain the seeds. Down ' 

 5Z 



