3(5 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



in sessile or subsessile umbellate cymes and with the calyx half as 

 Ion- as the corolla. Berries red when ripe, 1-celled at maturity. 



°In hedges and thickets. Very common in the South of England, 

 hut becoming rare in the Midland counties, and probably not 

 native North of Yorkshire and Cheshire, though it occurs in North- 

 umberland, but is said to have been probably introduced in the 

 stations recorded in that county. 



England. Perennial. Summer and Autumn. 

 Eootstock thick, with 1 or 2 slightly-branched fleshy fusiform 

 pale yellowish -brown wrinkled tubers. Stem brittle, angular, 

 branched mostly at the base, climbing by means of long simple 

 tendrils, which spring from the side of the leaf-stalks. Leaves 

 stalked, with the stalk curved, shorter than the lamina which is 

 divided into 5 lobes, of which the middle one is the longest all the 5 

 slightly angular. Flowers in axillary cymes, those on the male 

 plants stalked, corymbose, of 3 to 8 flowers which are greenish- 

 white, * to f inch across. Calyx widely bell-shaped with the lobes 

 triangular, shorter than the tube. Corolla of 5 oblong reticulated 

 lobes with transparent hairs. Anthers yellow. Female flowers i m 

 sessile or sub-sessile umbellate cymes of 2 to 5 flowers, with he 

 perianth resembling that of the male flowers, but smaller and with 

 [he addition of a smooth globular inferior ovary terminated by a 

 short cylindrical neck upon which the bell-shaped part of the calyx 

 is supported. Petals shorter and less distinctly reticulated than n 

 the male flowers. Stamens none. Stigmas 3, each of them 2-cleft, 

 papillose. Berries almost the size of peas, dim scarlet, 3- to , 6-seede d. 

 Seeds large greyish-yellow mottled with black or black mottled with 

 yellow. Plant somewhat succulent, bright-green, somewhat shining, 

 rough, with short white prickle-like hairs. 



i>r. Lankester finds a small fruited form at Felixstowe, Suflolk. 



Bed-berried Bryony. 



French, Bryone Dioique. German, Rothbeerige Zaunriihe. 

 This plant is known amongst the country people as -wild vine, wild hops, white 

 bryony, tetterberry, and wild nep Its roots attain an enormous size. Gerard* 

 says : " The Queen's chief surgion, Mr. William Godorons, a very curious and learned 

 gentleman, shewed me a root hereof that waied half an hundred weight, and ot the 

 bignes of a child of a yeare old." In this root is found a somewhat milky juice, very 

 nauseous and bitter to the taste. It is of a violently purgative and cathartic nature, 

 and has been used in medicine, but is now seldom employed by regular practat»on«a 

 It was formerly given in dropsy and other complaints, and is oi so acrid a character 

 that, if applied to the skin, it produces redness and even blisters. Lie other plants of 

 a like nature, it has found favour as a cataplasm, in the same way as we now ap P y 

 mustard poultices, and is extolled as a remedy for rheumatism, sciatica, kc It seems to 

 base Wen a favourite medicine with the older herbalists, and was prescribed by Galea, 



