82 



very early in the morning to the forests, and lop off with hatchets the branches that bear it, carrying these 

 afterwards to the shade, where they can collect the graijis at their leisure. It is then sold to merchants, who 

 fix a considerable price upon it at a distance from the place where it is found, and the Venetians have many 

 different names for the varieties of it. If kept longer than a year, it is apt to lose its proper taste and to be 

 spoiled." 



In Dauphiny this manna has been very generally employed by the apothecaries as a laxative, but it is said 

 to possess not more than half the strength of the product of the Calabrian ash. The mode in which it is 

 formed, however, deserves to be more fully inquired into, and it would be satisfactory to ascertain whether 

 there be any difference between this saccharine matter and the Mel Cedrinum, roscidum, and aerium, of the 

 ancients. Galen (in his third book on aliments) describes a mode of collecting the " Ros Montis Libani" very 

 similar to that given by Bellonius respecting the manna of the Larch. ' 



BOLETUS LARYCINUS 



Agaricum. Bellon. Axthis, tab. 20, 21. Dale, &c. Jacquhi Miscel. Aiistr. 1. p. 164. 

 '' Boletus ahies Laricis dicta" Linn. Mat. Med. 497- 



w 



Purging Agaric, (of the shops). 



+ 



On the trunk of the Larch is sometimes found a remarkable species o^ Boletus, well known to botanists, 

 and which is well described by Jacquin and Pallas."" It does not occur very frequently in the more southern 

 parts of Europe, if we may credit Bellonius, but it is common in some parts of the Russian empire, and 

 exported largely from Archangel. The form is generally oblong, variously lobed, and the lower part is always 

 somewhat truncated, porous, and of a sort of mud colour, whilst the remaining surface has an ashen hue. 

 Its parencht/ma is soft, sweetish, (at last of a nauseous bitter taste) and saponaceous, whence it is used among 

 the women in some parts of Siberia for washing their skins, and even their linen. 



Bellonius Vspeaks of this fungus yielding a fine purple dye, which has been found out, it appears, by the 

 Tungoos, these people employing a decoction of it with the roots of Galium for staining the hair of the rein 

 deei*, to ornament their persons. 



As a medicine, the Boletus Larycinus is now very rarely employed in England, but it retains a place amon 

 the domestic remedies of the Russians, as an emetic in intermitting fevers, and for some female complaints. 

 The B^aschkirs sprinkle the powder on foul idcers of cattle, as a detergent and antiverminous remedy.^ 



If it be intended to apply the Boletus Larignus to medicinal piirposes, some caution seems to be necessary, 

 in regard to the time of gathering it. Bellonius' recommends the autumn, that being the season at which,- 

 in common with fruits, he supposes this vegetable production to be just in a state of maturity. Should it 

 have exceeded two years' growth, its qualities, he says, will have undergone a change of a deleterious nature; 

 and if it should not have completed one year, the exhibition of it may be followed by effects equally 

 pernicious. 





Vide locum supra citatum. ' Fl. Ross. Tom. I. p. 3. . ■> " DeArb. Comf." p. 26. ' Piillas. (loco supra cit.) ' p. 26. 



' ^ h 



