IloIl.VdINACK.K. II.") 



flioii;,'li iiut iiiitiw. Tlic only pliu-i's wliuru I have seen it lIioruii;:lily 

 naturalised are St. Aubin's Bay, Jersey, and Hunstanton, Norfolk. 



[Kngland, Scotland, Irchiiid.] Annua! or I>ioniiial. Siimnier, 

 Autumn. 



Stem 9 inches to 2 feet hi^h, very thick, succulent, branched in large 

 sjwciinens. Root leaves resembling tliose of Anchusa scmj)crvirens, with 

 the lamina 3 to 7 inches long, and the petiole altout as nuicli more; 

 lower stem leaves stalked, the uppermost sessile. Racemes mostly in 

 pairs at the apex of the stem and brandies, at first rather compact, 

 but in i'ruit very lax, and from 3 to 7 iiiclies long; fruit pedicels drooping 

 l\ to 'i inches long, longer than the lanceolate bracts. Calyx in fruit 

 ij to ;,' inch long. Corollu -^ to [J inch across, brilliant blue; .segments 

 ovate-triangular. Anthers nearly sessile, purplish black, connivent, 

 with a purple hornlike appendage on the back alxait half as long as tiie 

 anther. Nucules ,1 inch long, dini, black, rough, with a wjiitc pn!- 

 vini-s at the base projecting much, and filling up nearly the space 

 within the basal ring. Phmt light green, hispid with vulnerant hairs 

 seated on tubercles of very unequal sizes. 



Common Borarje. 



French, Bmimicke officinale. German, tjehriiuchlichc Borelsch. 



Tlie Borage is one of our oldest garden herbs. It was highly valued by the 

 old herbalists as a cordial and pectoral, and is greatly extolled in all their writings. 

 Gcrarde says, " Those of our time douse the flowers in salads, to c-xhilai-ate and make 

 the mindc glad. Therc be also many things made of them, used everywhere for the 

 comfort of the hart, for the driving away of sorrowe and increasing the joie of tho 

 minde." Burton asserts in his " Anatomy of Melancholj'," on the authority of many 

 classic writers, that Boi-age " was that famous nepenthes of Homer which Poly<lamna, 

 Thonis's wife (then King of Thebes in Egypt), sent Helena for a token, of .such rare 

 virtue that if taken steept in wine, if wife and children, father and mother, brother 

 and sister, and all thy dearest friends should die before thy face, thou couldst not 

 grieve or shed a tear for them. Helena's commended bowl to e.vhiiiratc the heart, 

 had no other ingredient, a-s most of our critieks conjecture, than this of Boi-age." 

 Bacon remarks, that the " leaf of Burr.ige hath an excellent spirit to repress the fuli- 

 ginous vapour of dusky melancholic." Tho seeds were administered by the ancient 

 physicians in low fevers and agues, being recommended by one of those superstitious 

 practitioners in doses of " three thryrses " in tertian and four in a quartan ague. 

 Parkinson declares that all parts of the plant "are very cordiale, and helpe to expele 

 pensiveness and melancholic, that ariseth without manifest cause, wliereof came the 

 saying, 'ego borago gaudia semper ago.' " Culiiepper tells us that " the leaves and 

 roots are a very cordial ; they are u.sed in putrid and pestilential feavcrs, to defend the 

 licart and help to resist and expel the poyson or the venom of other creatures," and 

 adds, " the leaves, flowers, and seed, all or any of them, arc good to expel pensiveness 

 and melancholy; it helpeth to clarilic the blood and mitigate heat in feavers." 

 Notwithstanding all these encomiums, we cannot a,scertain that tho plant posses.ses 

 any vei-y active qualities, beyond those duo to the pre.sence of mucilage and a consi- 

 deiTiblo proportion of alkaline salts, particularly nitrate of potash, which gives a 



VOL. VII. y 



