CLASS XIX. ORDER 1.] HELMINTHIA. 1025 
been found useful in hepatic affections. It is 2 mild tonic, and acts 
considerably upon the secretions, hence its value in affections of the 
kidneys. From these properties also will be learned its value as 
an agricultural plant in all pasture lands, provoking to action the 
digestive organs of the cattle feeding upon it, carrying from the 
system superfluous fluids, and stimulating the secretion and im- 
proving the quality of the milk of cows. Few persons who have 
spent their youthful days in the country, are ignorant of the leading 
medicinal qualities of this flower. Howitt, noticing it, says— 
“Dandelion, with globe of down, 
The schoolboy’s clock in every town, 
Which the truant puffs amain, 
To conjure lost hours back again.” 
This hairy globe of down is, however, supposed to possess other 
powers to the youth, who has passed his school day hours and entered 
upon the poetic path of love; then each feathered sphere becomes, in 
the language of flowers, the “ Rustic Oracle;” and each little feather, 
charged with a tender thought, conveys its secret message to the dear 
one’s feet, when carefully blown on its erial voyage in the direction 
in which she dwells. 
The flowers expand when the sun rises, and close again as it dis. 
appears, as if 
“She, enamoured of the sun, 
At his departure hangs her head and weeps, 
And shrouds her sweetness up, and keeps 
Sad vigils, like a cloistered nun, 
Till his reviving ray appears, ~ 
Waking her beauty as he dries her tears.” 
Moore. 
GENUS VII. HELMINTH'IA.—4Jouss. Ox-tongue. 
Nat. Ord. Composi'tx. Juss. 
Gen. Cuan. Jnvolucrum double, the inner of eight equal scales, the 
outer of four or five lax leafy ones. Receptacle naked. Fruit 
transversely striated, its beak long, capillary. Pappus feathery, 
persistent.—Name <Astvs, eAusvOos, a worm ; and §nxn, a case ; so 
called in allusion to the form of the fruit. 
1. H. echioi'des, Garin. (Fig. 1200.) Bristly Ow-tongue. Exterior 
segments of involucrum ovato-cordate, with an acuminated point. 
Hooker, British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 289.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 
158.—Pieris echioides, Linn.—English Botany, t. 972.—English 
Flora, vol. iii. p. 339. 
Root tapering. Herb a bright green, shining, rough, with rigid 
pungent bristles, arising from a callous base. Stem erect, simple or 
