CHLORANTHACEJE. 



Nat.syst.ed.<2. ^.183. 



CHLORANTHUS. 



Flowers spiked, each with a bract. Calyx 0. Anther soli- 

 tary and 2-celled, or triple and 4-celled, with a thick fleshy 

 connective ; seated on the exterior side of the ovary. Stigma 

 sessile. Drupe baccate, 1 -seeded. 



633. C. officinalis JBlume enum. i. p. 79. Fl. Jav. ic. Moist 

 woods of Java, at the elevation of 15003000 feet above the 

 sea. 



A smooth shrub, 3-4 feet high. Branches opposite, straggling, 

 tumid at the articulations, fistular when young. Leaves spreading, 

 opposite, stalked, oblong, acuminated at each end, with glandular 

 serratures, thin, shining, and somewhat blistered ; petioles short, 

 taper, combined at the base along with the intrafoliaceous stipules 

 into a membranous sheath, which has 2 setaceous teeth on each side. 

 Spikes terminal, branched. Bracts dotted with glands. Anther 

 white, changing to yellow, 3-lobed ; the middle lobe 2-celled, the 

 laterals each 1-celled. Drupes straw-coloured. All the parts power- 

 fully aromatic ; the leaves and stems become insipid by keeping, but 

 the roots, if quickly dried and carefully preserved retain their pro- 

 perties for a long time. They have a fragrant camphor-like smell 

 and an aromatic bitterish taste, and resemble in appearance those of 

 Aristolochia serpentaria : like which they are among the most effica- 

 cious j medicinal stimulants which the Vegetable Kingdom produces. 

 The mountaineers of Java employ the roots in infusion or rubbed up 

 with the bark of Cinnamomum Culilawan as a remedy for spasms in 

 pregnant women. In like manner, mixed with such carminative sub- 

 stances as Anise and Ocymum they are employed with the greatest 

 success in the malignant small-pox in children. An infusion of the 

 dried root is successfully employed in fevers attended with great 

 muscular debility and a suppression of the functions of the skin. In a 

 typhus which ravaged certain districts of Java, in consequence of 

 long continued rains, following an unusually protracted dry season, the 

 symptoms attendant upon which were extreme debility, a languid 

 pulse, stupor, violent vomiting and bilious evacuations, the roots of this 

 Chloranthus were of the greatest service. It was again employed 

 most beneficially in a malignant intermittent fever which visited Java 

 in the year 1824. In such cases the infusion was usually combined 

 with a decoction of Cedrela Toona. This root has the great 

 merit of preserving its active properties for a long time if properly 

 prepared, and there can be no doubt that it is one of the most effica- 

 cious of all known remedial agents wherever there is a necessity for 

 continual and active stimulants. Blume. 

 309 x 3 



