No. 1005. 
ai? 
DORSTENTA HOUSTONI. 
Class. Order. 
TETRANDRIA | MONOGYNIA. 
A native of South America, introduced 
many years since. It requires the stove, 
and is readily increased either by seeds, 
which it ripens here, or by division of the 
root : it should be potted in loam and peat. 
This is one of the plants which produces 
the Contrayerva root, the powers of which 
есере dii ae 1 i arp 
are now supposed to be very moderate. 
The earlier botanists (most of whom were 
of the medical profession) seem to have 
imagined that every plant possessed some 
occult virtue of a healing kind, for which 
it was created. Many persons still enter- 
tain this notion, which seems to have little 
support either in history or experience. 
We learn that at the creation, “© out of the 
ground made the Lord God to grow every 
tree that is pleasant to the sight." In the 
garden of Eden, which was planted by God 
Himself, our first parents lived innocent 
VOL. XI. с M 
