BLUE-BOTTLE. 81 



azure-coloured, funnel-shaped, while those of the disk are small 

 and purplish ; hut the latter are perfect and fertile, the former 

 neuter*. The stamens are five, inserted upon the corolla be- 

 tween its lobes, with the filaments distinct, and the anthers 

 united into a tube. The ovary is simple, adherent with the 

 calyx, which is placed beneath it, surmounted by a single style 

 sheathed by the anthers and terminated by a bifid stigma. 

 The fruit is an achenium, crowned by a simple spreading 

 pappus. The seed is solitary in the pericai-p, erect, without 

 albumen. Plate 5, fig. 3, (a) floret of the circumference 

 or ray ; {b) floret of the disk ; (c) the seed crowned by the 

 pappus. 



This plant grows abundantly in corn-fields, embellishing 

 them with its brilliant flowers, which appear in July and Au- 

 gust. The name is said to be derived from the Centaur Chiron, 

 who with some plant of this genus was fabled to have cured 

 himself of a wound made by Hercules. It is called Cyanus 

 from xvavaos, azure-coloured. 



Qualities and Uses. — This plant has little to recommend it 

 but its ornaufiental character. Several varieties are cultivated 

 in gardens, with white and purple flowers, but they must all 

 yield in beauty to the denizen of the fields. The expressed 

 juice of the florets, with the addition of a little alum, makes a 

 good ink ; and may also be used as a water-colour, and for 

 staining linen blue ; but it is said not to be permanent. 



Medical Properties and Uses -f. — The Cyanus was reckoned, 

 by the credulous of former times, antispasmodic, aperient and 

 diuretic, and contributed to swell the catalogue of vulneraries, 

 being applied to contusions, wounds, and bites of venomous 

 beasts. Ray mentions that the powder is of the utmost service 

 sprinkled over erysipelatous affections. A famous collyrium, 



* And thus, from their not contributing to the production of seed, they 

 go to constitute the order Frustranea^ so called from the Latin frustra, 

 useless. 



f The introduction of this and a few others among medicinal plants, may 

 perhaps be reprehended ; therefore, it may be as well to state, that they 

 are admitted partly on account of the interest that attaches to them as 

 relics of a by-gone age, and because some of them are still used as empirical 

 remedies, with the real nature of which it is expedient to be acquainted. 

 Moreover, the plant jui>t described is almost the only example that can be 

 selected from the British P'lora of the l>otanical older to which it belongs. 



G 



