OLE 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



G L E 



617 



disuse since the introduction of hops. Cattle seem in gene- 

 ral to avoid it, though Linneus says that sheep eat it; horses 

 are not fond of it; and it is refused by cows, goats, and swine. 

 It is said to be injurious to those horses that eat much of it; 

 although the expressed juice, mixed with a little wine, and 

 applied morning and evening, destroys the white specks which 

 frequently infest their eyes. This plant has a peculiarly 

 strong smell, with a bitterish and somewhat aromatic taste ; 

 it was formerly in a high repute for a pectoral, detergent, ape- 

 rient, diuretic, and corroborant, and was particularly recom- 

 mended in pulmonary and nephritic complaints. In obsti- 

 nate coughs it is still a favourite remedy with the country 

 people, though seldom prescribed by medical practitioners, 

 and wholly discarded from the materia medica of the Lon- 

 don college. Mr. Ray cites a remarkable instance of its 

 efficacy in removing a violent and inveterate headache, by 

 drawing the juice of the plant up the nostrils; but Dr. 

 Cullen will not allow it to be of any utility, except as an 

 errhine : he thinks the use of it in ale to be frivolous, and 

 declares, that in many cases where he had seen it employed, 

 there was no evidence either of its diuretic or pectoral 

 effects. The usual manner of taking it is in an infusion, or 

 tea; the expressed juice is also used with honey in coughs; 

 a conserve or syrup is also made with it. The distilled 

 water is wholly useless. The conserve made of the young 

 tops in the spring, or the juice made into a syrup, is excel- 

 lent for colds, coughs, and shortness of breath ; and the 

 infusion, made strong, and drank as tea, is serviceable in all 

 complaints of the breast and lungs. The expressed juice 

 snuffed up the nose, is an excellent, and often an instanta- 

 neous remedy for the headache, and may be advantageously 

 used in inflammations of the eyes, arising from external vio- 

 lence. Notwithstanding what Dr. Cullen advances against 

 the use of this plant in ale, Meyrick asserts, that the leaves, 

 when bruised, and thrown into the vat with the liquor, not 

 only effectually clarify and give it an agreeable flavour, but 

 also communicate an antiscorbutic virtue. It is so common 

 under hedges, on banks, in woods, and sometimes in dry pas- 

 tures, that it is never cultivated in gardens. It varies in size, 

 as well as the degree of colour in the flower, according to its 

 situation : the flowers appear in April, May, and June. A 

 plant so universally esteemed by the multitude, was sure to 

 acquire many names. To those already enumerated we have 

 to add that of Hay-maids; the Germans call it, gundelreben, 

 gundermann, grundermann, gundelrab, gundrebe, grundrebe, 

 gunderlunze, donnerrebe, erdepheu, erdenkranzlein, meerwur- 

 zel; the Dutch call it, aardveil, hondsdraf, onderhave ; the 

 Danes, vedbende; the Swedes, jordrefrot; the Italians, ellera 

 terrestre; and the Spaniards, hicdra terrestre. 



Gleditsia; a genus of the class Polygamia, order Dioecia. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Male: a long, compact, cy- 

 lindric ament. Calix: perianth proper, three-leaved; leaflets 

 palulous, small, acute. Corolla: petals three, roundish, ses- 

 sile, patulous, like the calix ; nectary turbinate, with the other 

 parts of the fructification growing to the mouth. Stamina : 

 filamenta six, filiform, longer than the corolla; antheree in- 

 cumbent, oblong, compressed, twin. Hermaphrodite : in 

 the same ament with the males, usually terminating. Calix: 

 perianth four-cleft, otherwise as in the male. Corolla : pe- 

 tals four, otherwise as in the male ; nectary as in the male. 

 Stamina: as in the male. Pistil, Pericarp, and Seed: as 

 in the female. Female: a lax ament, on a distinct plant. 

 Calix : perianth proper, as in the male, but five-leaved. 

 Corolla: petals five, long, sharp, from upright spreading; 

 nectaries two, short, like filamenta. Pistil: germen broad, 

 flatted, longer than the corolla ; style short, reflex ; stigma 

 VOL i. 52. 



thick, the length of the style, along which it grows, pubes- 

 cent at top. Pericarp: legume very large, broad, extremely 

 flatted, divided by several transverse partitions, and filled 

 with pulp. Seeds : solitary, roundish, hard, shining. ES- 

 SENTIAL CHARACTER. Hermaphrodite. Calix: four-cleft. 

 Corolla: four-petalled. Stamina: six. Pistil: one. Male. 

 Calix: three-leaved. Corolla: three-petalled. .Stamina: six. 

 Female. Culix: rive-leaved. Corolla: five-petalled. Pistil: 



one. Legume. The species are, 



1. Gleditsia Triacanthos ; Three-horned Acacia. Leaflets 

 ovate-oblong; spines very frequent, in all the varieties axil- 

 lary, and commonly triple. It rises with an erect trunk to 

 the height of thirty or forty feet, and is armed with spines, 

 three or four inches long, which have two or three smaller 

 ones coming out from the side, and are frequently produced 

 in clusters at the knots of the stem ; leaves bipinnaie, com- 

 posed of ten pairs of leaflets, of a lucid green, and sessile; 

 the flowers come out from the side of the young branches, 

 and being of an herbaceous colou'r, make no figure : legume 

 nearly a foot and a half long, and two inches broad ; seeds 

 smooth, surrounded by a sweet pulp. The leaves seldom 

 come out till June in this country, and the flowers not till 

 the end of July; neither does the tree produce any flowers 

 until it has grown to a large size. There are several varieties, 

 with the spines stronger and weaker, and different in num- 

 ber. These trees are propagated by seeds, which must be 

 procured from America ; those of the first are annually sent 

 to England in plenty, by the title of Locust, or Honey-locust, 

 to distinguish them from the False Acacia, which is frequently 

 called Locust-tree in America. The seeds may be sown upon 

 a bed of light earth in the spring, burying them half an inch 

 deep ; and, if the spring should prove dry, they must be fre- 

 quently watered, otherwise the plants will not come up the 

 first year, for sometimes the seeds remain two years in the 

 earth before they appear ; so that those who wish to save 

 time, should sow the seeds as soon as they arrive, and plunge 

 the pots into a moderate hot-bed, observing to water them 

 frequently ; by this method most of the plants will come up 

 in the same season ; but these should be gradually inured to 

 bear the open air, for if they are continued in the hot-bed, 

 they will draw up weak. The plants in pots will require fre- 

 quent waterings during the summer season; but those in the 

 full ground will require much less, except in very dry seasons. 

 In autumn, those in the pots should be placed under a hot- 

 bed frame, to protect them from frost, for these young plants 

 generally keep growing late in the summer, and the upper 

 part of their shoots being tender, the early frost of the au- 

 tumn often kills the end of them, if they are not protected, 

 and this frequently occasions great part of the shoots decay- 

 ing in winter; for which reason, those plants in the full ground 

 should be covered with mats in autumn, on the first appear- 

 ance of frost, for a small frost in autumn will do more mis- 

 chief to these young shoots which are full of sap, than severe 

 frost when the shoots are hardened. In the following spring 

 these plants may be transplanted into nursery beds, at a foot 

 distance row from row, and six inches asunder in the rows ; 

 but this should not be performed till April, after the danger 

 of harder frost is over, for as the plants do not put out their 

 leaves till very late, there will be no hazard in removing them 

 any time before May. If the season should prove dry, they 

 must be watered ; and if the surface of the beds be covered 

 with moss or mulch, to prevent the earth from drying, it will 

 be of great service to the plants; which may remain two years 

 in these beds, during which time they must be constantly 

 kept clean from weeds, and in the winter there should be 

 some rotten tan or other mulch spread over the surface of the 

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