PLANTS. 8^5 



the resin called Gutta Pereba, the yellow dye-wood called 

 Fustic (Maclura tinctoria, Don.), and the reputed deadly 

 Upas (Antiaris toxicaria, Leschen), most likely deserve 

 to be ranked with this family. 

 FIFTY-EIGHTH FAMILY. URTICACEJE. (Class 22, L.) 

 Hemp (Canabis sativa) has a stiff, upright stalk, 

 rough and crenate ; leaves petiolate, palmately five to 

 seven foliate. Leaflets lanceolate, serrate. Male and 

 female flowers easily distinguished ; the first is termed 

 fimble hemp and the latter seed-bearing. Flowers small, 

 green, solitary, and axillary in the barren plants, spiked 

 in the fertile ones. Introduced from Persia and India, 

 is cultivated in many countries. Seeds inodorous, but 

 have a sweetish, oily, somewhat nauseating taste. The 

 green plant, however, has a strong smell, which produces 

 stupor, or has an intoxicating influence, wherefore it is 

 considered very unwholesome to sleep in a hemp field or 

 in any place where the odor is inhaled to any extent. It 

 is a well known fact that children have been killed by it. 

 The fibrous portion of the stalk, treated like that of flax, 

 is spun into yarn for coarse cloths, or made into cordage. 

 Hemp is treated as follows : after being pulled it is laid in 

 water and left to a partial decay, so that the fibers may 

 be separated from the resin which confines them ; then 

 transferred to clean water ; next spread out in a grass 

 field, and exposed to the influence of the sun and dew. 

 After this it is heated or dried in a kiln, until the fibers 

 begin to separate from the woody portion of the stem, 

 which has become decayed and brittle. A succeeding 

 operation is to break it, which is done with an instru- 

 ment made of wood, and adapted to the purpose ; the 

 tough fibers are now relieved from the greater portion 

 ^f the wood, and the hemp subjected to the further pro- 



