42 HOUSE-LEEK. 



House-leek has the various provincial names of Ayegreen and 

 Sengreen, signifying evergreen ; also Jupiter's-eye, Bullock's-eye, 

 and Jupiter's-beard. 



About thirty species of Sempervivum have been described : those 

 cultivated in the green-house are chiefly natives of the Canary 

 Islands. " The hardy kinds are well, fitted for rock-work, or to 

 grow on walls ; and they are easily increased by the offsets, which 

 are produced in great abundance. A light soil suits them best." 



" In some countries House-leek is regarded with a kind of reli- 

 gious veneration ; the simple and credulous inhabitants attributing 

 to it the power of defending them from enchantments, and the 

 malevolence of pretended sorcerers/'* Linnaeus informs us that 

 in Smoland, House-leek is planted on the roofs of houses to preserve 

 them from decay. It may easily be made to cover any extent of 

 surface, by planting the offsets in common earth mixed with 

 manure. Goats and sheep eat the foliage of this plant, other 

 animals in general refuse it. 



Qualities. — House-leek has no very perceptible odour ; to the 

 taste it is watery, cooling, and slightly acrid and styptic. The 

 leaves are very succulent, and contain a large quantity of acidulous, 

 rather opaque juice, which besides producing a sensation of as- 

 triction in the mouth, manifests its astringency by the dark colour 

 it assumes when mixed with a solution of sulphate of iron. The 

 expressed juice, filtered and inspissated by spontaneous evapora- 

 tion, yields a deep yellow, tenacious, mucilaginous mass, of an aci- 

 dulous, sub-saline and styptic taste. " It is observable that the 

 filtered juice, on the addition of an equal quantity of rectified 

 spirits of wine, forms a light, white coagulum, like cream or fine 

 pomatum, of a weak but penetrating taste ; this, freed from the 

 fluid part and exposed to the air, almost totally exhales. From this 

 experiment, it is concluded by some, that House-leek contains a 

 volatile alkaline salt ; but the juice coagulates in the same manner 

 with volatile alkalies themselves, as also with fixed alkalies : acids 

 produce no coagulation. "f 



Medicinal Properties and Uses. — The House-leek, which is 

 now but indifferently valued as an internal remedy against diseases, 

 was formerly considered a very serviceable refrigerant and astringent. 



* Flore Med. torn. iv. p. 161. 

 t Lewis' Materia Mcdica, p. 519. 



