POL 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



POL 



379 



'29. Polygonum Tataricum ; Tartarian Polygonum. Leaves 

 cordate-sagittate; stem unarmed, erect; seeds somewhat 

 toothed ; root annual ; flowers white, on many-flowered, 

 axillary, and terminating peduncles, with oblong curved corn- 

 man involucres. Native of Tartary and China. 



30. Polygonum Fagopyrum ; Common Buck-wheat. Leaves 

 cordate-sagittate ; stems almost upright, unarmed ; angles 

 of the seeds equal. Root annual, fibrous; herb succulent, a 

 foot or two high, with a zigzag, round, branched, leafy 

 stem ; racemes of flowers axillary and terminating, panicled, 

 upright, shorter than the leaves, on slender peduncles a.n 

 inch or more in length. The flowers make a handsome 

 appearance, and are either quite white, or tinged with red ; 

 with the latter of which they become more deeply coloured. 

 Buck-wheat was supposed to have come originally from 

 Africa, but it is now generally allowed that we derived it from 

 Asia. In China and Japan, the flour is. frequently made into 

 cakes. It is not indigenous in Europe, though it has found 

 its way into most European Florae, and occurs on dunghills, 

 and about cultivated fields. It flowers in July and August. 

 The flour is made into thin cakes, called crumpets, in some 

 parts of England ; and they are supposed to be nutritious, 

 and not apt to turn sour upon the stomach. The seed is 

 excellent for horses, either whole or broken, mixed with bran, 

 chaff, or grains. A bushel goes farther than two bushels 

 of oats, and, mixed with at least four times as much bran, 

 will be full feed for any horse for a week. Four bushels of 

 the meal, put up at four hundred weight, will fat a hog of 

 sixteen or twenty stone in three weeks, giving him, after- 

 wards, three bushels of Indian Corn, or Hog Peas, broken 

 in a mill, and then mixed with plenty of water. Eight bushels 

 of Buck-wheat meal will go as far as twelve bushels of Barley 

 meal. Mortimer recommends to feed the plant off with milch 

 cows, just before it blossoms, because it flushes them with 

 milk. The seeds are excellent food for poultry; but sheep, 

 feeding on the green herb, are said to become unhealthy. 

 Duhamel advises the removal of bee-hives, in the autumn, to 

 situations where plenty of this plant is sown, as a field of 

 Buck-wheat affords a rich repast for those interesting insects, 

 the bees, in late and dreary parts of the season. This crop 

 is not so common in England as upon the continent; but 

 there is more grown in Norfolk than in any other county. 

 Its principal use is to cleanse foul land, and for ploughing in 

 as a manure, when it is fully grown. In a dry summer it is 

 good fodder ; and, as a crop, it will produce an equal quantity 

 with Oats, and sell for more money. The farmer may sow 

 any crop after it, especially Wheat. Winter tares may be 

 sowed in September, and mowed off as soon as convenient in 

 the spring; then Buck-wheat may be sown the second week 

 in May, and ploughed in when in flower, which will be about 

 the second week in July; lastly, sow Wheat, each on one 

 earth; or seed Turnip maybe rolled in, harrowing with a 

 light bush-harrow. Making Turnips succeed Buck-wheat 

 ploughed, is good husbandry on light lands, where there is 

 a difficulty in procuring manure; and upon heavy strong 

 lands, that have been long under the plough, with two crops 

 and a fallow. Clay land, well pulverized, always produces a 

 heavy crop of Buck-wheat, when sown in the month of June, 

 provided the summer proves tolerably dry after the sowing. 

 There is no better way of laying down light lands to grass, 

 than in the month of June, to let Buck-wheat, with Grass 

 seeds, follow Swedish Turnips. Twelve pounds of White 

 Clover, and eight pounds of Yellow Trefoil, may be sown 

 upon an acre. One bushel is sufficient to sow an acre, but 

 some go as far as two bushels. After Buck-wheat is mown, 

 it must lie several days, till the stalk be withered, before it 

 VOL. ii. 97. 



be housed. It is in no danger of the seeds falling, nor does 

 it suffer much by wet. It yields fifty or sixty bushels upon 

 an acre, in good land. 



31. Polygonum Convolvulus; Climbing Buck-wheat, or 

 Black Bind-weed. Leaves cordate-sagittate ; stem twining, 

 angular; calicine segments bluntly keeled. Root annual, 

 fibrous, of a brown colour ; the stem twining about corn and 

 other plants to the height of two or three feet, roughish, and 

 somewhat branched ; leaves pale green, smooth, entire, 

 stalked; racemes peduncled, interrupted, having small leaves 

 on them ; (Dr. Withering, who calls them flowering spikes, 

 observes, that they are longer than the leaves ;) flowers in 

 bundles, nodding, white, on the outside green and purple ; 

 the three outer segments bluntly keeled, and not having the 

 keel dilated. The seeds afford excellent food for small birds. 

 They are, indeed 2 as good for use as those of the preceding 

 species, if dependence may be placed on the representations 

 of various authors, who agree that it produces more in quan- 

 tity, and bears the cold better. It flowers from June to Sep- 

 tember. Native of most parts of Europe, Siberia, and Japan, 

 in corn-fields, gardens, and hedges. 



32. Polygonum Multiflorum ; Many-flowered Polygonum. 

 Leaves cordate ; stem twining, angular ; panicle of flowers 

 branched ; root tuberous, somewhat fleshy, fibrous, white.- 

 Native of Japan, where the root is esteemed as a cordial, 

 and is used for that purpose raw; but it is said to taste best 

 when roasted in the embers. 



33. Polygonum Dumctorum ; Bush Buck-wheat. Leaves 

 cordate ; stem twining, even ; flowers keel-winged ; root 

 annual. It is distinguished from the thirty-first species, by 

 having a longer and more twining stem, and by not being 

 striated. The lobes at the base of the leaves are more 

 rounded ; and the flowers are rather panicled than racemed. 

 Native of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Siberia, in 

 shady bushy places. 



34. Polygonum Scandens ; Climbing Polygonum. Leaves 

 cordate ; stem erect, scandent. The numerous flowers come 

 out from the upper axils in spikes three inches long, on a very 

 short peduncle ; they are round, flat, swelled out in the mid- 

 dle, and green, having a thin white membrane round them, 

 like a Parsnep seed : when the seed is ripe, these membranes 

 become somewhat larger, and the protuberant part in the 

 middle turns brown. Perennial ; flowering in August and 

 September. Native of America. 



35. Polygonum Ciliatum. Flowers octandrous, trigynous ; 

 stipules striated, blunt, ciliate ; spikes very short ; stem 

 herbaceous, simple, four-cornered, upright, slender, a foot 

 and half high. Native of China. 



36. Polygonum Odoratum. Flowers octandrous, trigynous; 

 spikes long, terminating; root creeping; stem herbaceous, 

 one foot high, nearly upright, simple. Native of Cochin- 

 china, in moist places, and cultivated all over the country as 

 excellent sauce for fish. 



37. Polygonum Cilinode. Flowers octandrous, semitri- 

 gynous ; leaves cordate ; stalk angular, prostrate or climbing, 

 slightly rough ; segments of the calix obtusely carinated. 

 Grows in hedges and fields from Canada to New York, and 

 flowers in July. 



Polymnia ; a genus of the class Syngenesia, order Poly- 

 gamia Necessaria. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix: com- 

 mon, exterior, spreading, larger, four or five leaved, with 

 ovate leaflets; superior eight or ten leaved, with boat-shaped 

 erect leaflets. Corolla : compound, radiate ; corollets her- 

 maphrodite, many in the disk ; female five or ten in the ray ; 

 proper of the hermaphrodite funnel-form, five-cleft ; of the 

 female ligulate, two or three toothed. Stamina: in the her- 

 5D 



