/ 
Th BRITISH HERBAL. 
DL V-1:S: TORN: wii 
True black Hellebore. 
Helleborus niger flore rofeo. 
The root confifts of avaft quantity of thick, 
tough, long, and black fibres; fometimes faftened 
toa {mall head, fometimes without any. 
The leaves rife in a clufter, and are large and 
beautiful: they are of the fingered kind, and of a 
pale green colour, and fiefhytexture. They ftand . 
on footftalks three or four inches long, thick, 
flethy, redith, ‘but feldom quite erect; and each 
leaf is compofed of about feven ‘parts, fometimes 
lefs : thefe are broad, fhort, ferrated at the edges, 
and pointed at the ends. 
Among ‘thefe rife the ftalks which fupport the 
flowers. 
Thefe are fhorter than the footftalks of the 
leaves, and, like them, thick, flefhy, and often | 
redifh : each fuftains a fingle flower, and each | 
has a kind of little leaf on it placed about its | 
_ middle, and altogether unlike the others. 
The flower is very large, and very beautiful ; | 
it is white, with a bluth of redih, and is as big | 
as a fmall fingle rofe: there are numerous threads | 
in the centre, with white buttons. 
The feed-veffels are numerous, flatted, and 
full of a roundifh feed. 
It is a native of Germany, and is frequent on 
(ee oN 
FOREIGN 
Ui 
SPECIES, 
the Apenine mountains. It flowers in the dead 
of winter; whence it has obtained among our 
pardeners the name of (Chbriftmas flower. 
C. Bauhine calls it Helleborus niger flore rofeo 5 
others, Helleborus niger verus. 
This is the -dlack bellebore {o celebrated among 
the antients for its virtues. It was efteemed a fo- 
vereign cure for madnefs. 
It is an excellent deobftruent, and is good in 
nervous and hyfterick cafes. The principal vir- 
tue is in the outer bark of the root, the reit being 
infipid. 
It may be given in powder, or in tin¢ture 3 
but the beft method is the latter. It is a coarfe, 
rough medicine; and there fhould always be gi- 
ven with it ‘cloves, cardamoms, ‘or fome other 
fpice. 
Jt operates as a cathartick, but very uncer- 
tainly. Its beft ufe is in obftinate obftru@tions. 
| Thave known inveterate complaints in the head 
cured by a continued ufe of a tinGture of ellebore 
and cloves, thirty drops for a dofé. : 
The tinéture for this purpofe fhould be made 
with an ounce of bellebore-root, a dram anda half 
of cloves, and a quart of proof fpirit, without heat. 
Great care muft ‘be taken that the root be frefh, 
foritis often damaged by keeping. 
all. 
GLOBE-FLOWER. 
TROLLIVUS. 
HE leaves are fingered: the flower confifts of numerous petals; the outer ones are fhorter 3 
and the inner, which are larger, bend toward one another ; fo that the flower is globular: the 
capfules of feeds are numerous. 
Linnzeus, in his Genera Plantarum, makes this a fpecies of hellebore ftom which it differs in that 
effential and obvious character, the number, form, and difpofition of the petals which compofe the 
flower. He was not ignorant of this plain diftinétion : but the fondnefs for his fyftem would not then 
let him feparate a plant he faw fo perfectly diftin&t. He acknowledges that the number and figure of 
the feveral. parts of the flower vary ; but he fays the effential character of the genus confifts in the nec. 
tarium. This is the fhift to which we have feen this great author before reduced in the crow- 
foot kind. Nature difclaims that fyftem, which will force, under one imaginary genus plants the 
form, number, and fituation of the feveral parts of whofe flowers are unlike; becaufe in each 
there isa little glandule in the lower part of the petal, that is, fomewhat alike in one and in the other, 
In his Species Plantarum this, author has given them as feparate genera. 
‘ DEV ise Oona. 
a 
: Common Globe- flower. 
Trollius vulgaris. 
The root is a tuft of long thick fibres, con- 
nected to a very fmall head. 
The leaves rife in a clufter, and each is fup- 
ported on a long and moderately thick foorftalk : 
they are in the whole of a roundifh circumference, 
but are divided down to. the ftalk into five, fe- 
ven, or more parts; and each of thefe is alfo to- 
ward its extremity divided more flightly into fe- 
veral others, and all the way notched at the 
edges. i 
The flalk is round, thick, upright, two feet 
Nelv, 
BRITISH SPECTLES: 
high; of a pale green, and fcarce at all divided 
into branches. 5 
Its leaves are few, and placed irregularly: there 
are one or two towards the bottom, and one only 
near the tops the lower ones have fthort foot- 
ftalks, the upper none: they refemble thofe which 
rife from the root in their divifion and colour, 
which is a.dufky and unpleafant green. 
The flower is large, yellow, fingular, and 
beautiful: it: never perfeétly opens. The outer 
‘petals-or leaves are fhort, the inner much larger ; 
and they nearly clofe at their points, leaving only 
a very {mall opening into the body of the flower: 
the fhape of which is therefore globular. There 
K ‘ ftand 
