VOL. LX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 87 



hurt it, some of them grew near 20 feet high, a charming bright evergreen 

 aromatic." This observation of Mr. Bartram, relating to its bearing a severe 

 frost, may afford us a useful hint in the cultivation of this tree, especially as I am 

 convinced, from repeated accounts of the weather in West Florida, that the 

 frost is much more intense there, whence those plants, which you now have in 

 vigour, were brought, than in East Florida ; so that the experiment is well worth 

 making with one of them, to see how far it will stand the severity of our winters. 

 ShouUl it succeed, it would be a very great acquisition to our gardeners, and be 

 highly ornamental to our plantations of evergreens. 



The medicinal properties of this tree are certainly worth inquiring into. The 

 leaves afford a most agreeable bitter. A sprig of it set to putrify in a phial of 

 water, the bark, soon became full of a clear mucilage. The young blossoms put 

 into water, with a small quantity of oil of tartar per deliquium, from a dark 

 reddish colour, became a light brown; but from the same proportion of oil of 

 vitriol in water, they turned to a fine carmine colour, which stained the paper 

 of a fine red. This points out its astringent quality. 



Before I come to the botanical characters of our Florida illicium, I must 

 observe, that it appears to me to be a different species from the oriental one. 

 The seed vessels from China, which are to be seen in collections of the Materia 

 Medica, especially among foreigners, smell very disagreeably of aniseed: our 

 Florida seed vessel is agreeably aromatic, as are the leaves and young branches. 

 The flower, according to Kaempfer, is of a yellowish white, and looks at a distance 

 like a narcissus: ours is of a dark red colour. 



Kaempfer reckons the number of petals l6, and the rays or seed vessels 8: 

 the number of petals in ours is from 21 to 27, and the seed vessels 12 or 13 

 that ripen. In respect to the form and growth of the tree, they are much the 

 same; for instance, they both grow to the size of a cherry tree; their leaves are 

 of an oblong oval shape, pointed at both ends, fleshy, with (ew veins, growing 

 alternately, and in tufts at the ends of the small branches. Dr. Linnaeus, who 

 takes his characters of the illicium anisatum (Gren. Plant, p. 244) from 

 Kaempfer, places it among the dodecandria polygnia. But I am persuaded you 

 will agree with me, that from its characters ours must be of the polyandria 

 polygnia, and should stand next to the magnolia. 



Explanation of the Illicium Tloridanum, in pi- 2 — a is a branch, drawn fronn a plant in her Royal 

 Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales's garden at Kew. The flowers and seed vessels were 

 drawn from specimens sent over from Pensacola by the Lieutenant Governor Durnford. bb The 

 front view of two flowers, c The back view of a flower, d The bud of a flower unopened. 

 EEE The pistilla, or female organs, being the embryo seed vessel, separated from the staminas, 

 or male organs, f One single pistillum, with the germen, style, and stigma, g The male and 

 female organs, a little magnified, h Two stanina, a little magnified, i The farina fcecundans or 

 male dust, kk The calyx, with 5 little leaves. ll The seed vessels, with 13 capsules. 



