346 TlMEHRI. 



rara clover, sweethearts, thistle-weed, and soldier's tassel, 

 and the leafv heads and little pale mauve flowers of 

 Beloperone nemorosa, a very variable weed ; the stems 

 are wiry and straggling, and the heads are formed of 

 dense over-lapping leafy bracks, making a four-sided 

 blunted spike from one to four inches in length ; the 

 five-lobed corollas peeping or hanging from these heads 

 are sometimes almost noticeably pretty, but more often 

 small and insignificant. More sparsely will be seen the 

 congo-lana, the dark papilionaceous flowers of the wild 

 gully-root, and the conspicuous petunia-like blossoms, 

 mauve-blue shaded with indigo, of the spirit-leaf, snap- 

 dragon, menow-root, or minnie-root (Ruellia tuber- 

 osa) ; the two last names may be a corruption of 

 many-root, as it has large bundles of tuberous 

 roots, "good 'for all diseases," as I am certified by a 

 local " wise woman,'' but the origin of the others is un- 

 known to me. We may also notice here and there 

 a neat-looking herb with lanceolate, serrated leaves, 

 which catch the eye by the symmetrically " twilled" look 

 given by the indented ribs ; it is known as the wild 

 green-tea bush, and is said to make good tea as a drink, 

 not a physic ; the close-bristling, rounded, and ternately 

 divided capsules are more conspicuous than the minute 

 white flowers. The same name is sometimes given to 

 one of the broom- wreds (Capraria biflora). a shrubby 

 herb, which grows two or three feet high, commonest 

 near but not on the sea-shore ; it has lanceolate, deeply 

 serrated, not twilled, leaves, and little five-cleft white 

 flowers, and is also called wild senna and goat-weed. A 

 smaller and slenderer kind found by road-sides, in the 

 Kitty village for instance, with delicate white flowers 



