PL A 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



P L A 



347 



common people now apply the leaves to fresh wounds, and 

 cutaneous sores. Inwardly, they have been used in phthisical 

 complaints, spitting of blood, and in various fluxes, both 

 alvine and htemorrhagic. The seeds, however, seem better 

 adapted to relieve pulmonary diseases than the leaves, being 

 extremely mucilaginous. The roots have also been recom- 

 mended for the cure of tertian intermittents, and not unde- 

 servedly, from the experience of Bergius. An ounce, or even 

 two, of the expressed juice, or the same quantity of a strong 

 infusion, tnay be given for a dose : but this quantity should 

 be double in agues, and taken at the commencement of the 

 fit. Plantain is said to be a cure for the bite of the rattle- 

 snake ; but probably with little foundation, although it is 

 one of the principal ingredients in the remedy of the negro 

 Coesar, for the discovery of which he received a considerable 

 reward from the Assembly of South Carolina. Remarkable 

 success, says a late writer, has attended its use in the liver 

 complaint, and for spitting of blood. We know a recent 

 case of a person, who was for some years unable to attend 

 his business, by reason of pain in the stomach, &c. who was 

 speedily cured by using it as tea. A mode of preparation 

 recommended, is this: Take the leaves, when free from 

 moisture, bruise them in a mortar, wrap them in a cloth put 

 in hot water for a time, and extract the juice ; keep it bottled, 

 and to a wine-glass full, add one-fourth of wine itself, for 

 a dose. Plantain, says Meyrick, is of a cooling, astringent, 

 healing nature. A decoction of the whole plant is good in 

 disorders of the kidneys and urinary vessels. The root, dried 

 and reduced to powder, and taken in doses of about half a 

 drachm, is serviceable in fluxes of the bowels, attended with 

 bloody stools. The expressed juice is good against spitting 

 of blood, immoderate fluxes of the menses, and piles. The 

 seeds reduced to powder, and taken, stop the whites. The 

 leaves bruised, and applied to fresh cuts, soon heal them, and 

 are good to cleanse and heal ulcers. The seeds afford food 

 to many of the small birds, and cattle in general readily eat 

 the leaves. It is a perennial plant, and flowers during the 

 whole summer. Native of most parts of Europe, and Japan, 

 in meadows and gardens, and particularly by way-sides, 

 from which it derives its common name. 



2. Plantago Crassa ; Thick-leaved Plantain. Leaves ob- 

 ovate, shining, waved, somewhat fleshy, subsessile ; scape 

 compressed below ; flowers imbricate, remote at the base. 

 This is a stiff roughish plant, very much divided, or many- 

 headed : it bears the open air in summer, but must be taken 

 into the green-house in winter. The root is perennial, con- 

 sisting of a heap of thick, branchy, white fibres ; the radical 

 leaves are numerous, thick, erect, and either of an ovate or 

 lanceolate form, from a channelled footstalk ; spikes round, 

 dense; seeds ovate, punctated, if viewed with a glass blackish, 

 and not glossy. It is thought to be a native of the south of 

 Europe. 



3. Plantago Asiatica; Asiatic Plantain. Leaves ovate, 

 smooth ; scape angular ; spike having the florets distinct. 

 This resembles the first species so much, that it might easily 

 be taken for the same ; the spike, however, is longer, the 

 flowers remote, the leaves usually somewhat toothed at the 

 base, and the scape angular. It flowers in July. Native of 

 China and Siberia. 



4. Plantago Maxima; Greatest Plantain. Leaves ovate, 

 somewhat toothletted, pubescent, nine-nerved ; spikes cylin- 

 drical, imbricate ; scape round. The root is fusiform, peren- 

 nial, and the thickness of a finger; producing annually several 

 K" eaves with long footstalks, which are marked in front with 



furrow. It flowers in July and August. Native of Siberia, 

 t will bear the open air. 

 ' VOL. ii. 95. 



5. Plantago Media ; Hoary Plantain. Leaves ovate, 

 pubescent, longer than the petiole ; scape round ; spike cylin- 

 drical ; seeds solitary. This species has the leaves small, 

 and less blunt than in the Common Great Plantain : they are 

 hoary, commonly five-nerved, lying close to the ground, on 

 very short, dilated, petioles; spikes shoot close; root peren- 

 nial, large when fully grown, penetrating deep, and having 

 numerous lateral fibres, by which it supports itself in the 

 most scorching seasons ; it is also not destroyed by frequent 

 mowing, as most lawns and grass-plats testify. A single 

 drop of oil of vitriol on the crown of each root, is said to be 

 the most certain mode of eradicating these plants. Native of 

 most parts of Europe, among grass, especially in calcareous 

 and gravelly soils, flowering during the whole summer. 



6. Plantago Virginica; Virginian Plantain. Leaves lan- 

 ceolate-ovate, pubescent, somewhat toothletted ; spikes hav- 

 ing the flowers remote ; scape round. In America it unfolds 

 its corolla, and puts forth the stamina, which it scarcely ever 

 does in Europe. Annual, and a native of Virginia. 



7. Plantago Altissima; Tall Plantain. Leaves lanceolate, 

 five-nerved, toothed, smooth; spike oblong, cylindrical; scape 

 angular. Root perennial ; spike scarcely an inch and half 

 in length, smooth, short, compact, and close, in proportion 

 to the size of the plant. Native of Italy and Silesia. 



8. Plantago Lanceolata ; Ribwort Plantain. Leaves lan- 

 ceolate, entire ; spike subovate, naked ; scape angular. Root 

 perennial, when old appearing as if bitten off at the end. Dr. 

 Withering remarks, that the leaves, which come all from the 

 root and are lanceolate, in maritime situations are toothed all 

 along the edges. A spike will sometimes contain one hundred 

 and thirty small flowers, crowded close together, with an 

 ovate pointed scale or bracte at the base of each. The cap- 

 sule contains two oblong shining seeds, of an amber colour in 

 each cell. The stalks continue to grow after the flowering 

 is over, and sometimes shoot out to the length of two feet or 

 more. 'When it grows in meadows, the leaves are erect, and 

 drawn up ; but in a dry barren soil, they are shorter, broader, 

 and more spread on the ground. It grows spontaneously by 

 the sides of roads in dry pastures, where it is left untouched 

 by cattle, to feed small birds with the copious produce of its 

 seeds. It has been generally considered as a weed, occupy- 

 ing the room of grasses, and other useful herbs ; but has lately 

 been introduced into culture, under the name of Rib-grass* 

 as a good food for sheep, or to be made into hay for cattle in 

 general. Haller attributes the richness of the milk in the 

 Alpine dairies to this plant, and Alchemilla Vulgaris or 

 Ladies' Mantle. Linneus says it is eaten by horses, sheep, 

 and goats, but refused by cows. Sheep will eat it either 

 green or dried, provided it be well gotten ; but it does not 

 answer for pasturage, without a mixture of clover or grasses. 

 The total absence of this plant in marshy lands, is thought to 

 be a certain criterion of their wretched quality ; for in pro- 

 portion as such soils are improved, it will flourish and abound. 

 Mr. Zappa of Milan, says, that this grass grows spontane- 

 ously in every meadow of Lombardy, especially in those which 

 are irrigated ; that it vegetates early, flowers at the beginning 

 of May, ripens in five weeks, and is cut with Poa Trivialis. 

 He describes the length of the leaves as about a foot, and the 

 height of the stalk about a foot and half; that it multiplies 

 itself much by the seed, and a little by the roots, which it 

 continues for some time to reproduce ; that it is eaten 

 heartily by every sort of cattle, and particularly by cows in 

 grass, who like it most in May, when it has great influence 

 on their milk ; that the hay is eaten more voraciously by 

 cows, and has great influence on their flesh ; in short, that 

 it is one of the best plants either for the milk or the flesh. 



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