178 
The BRIT1'S HH’ H ERB AL, 
g. Bay-leaved Saint John’s wort. 
Hypericum foliis laurinis feminibus alatis. 
The root is long, Jarge, woody, and fpread- 
ing. 
The ftem is firm, woody, brittle, and very 
much branched; and is covered with a pale 
brown bark. 
The leaves are numerous, oblong, and of a 
pale green: they are delicately ferrated at the 
edges, and obtufe at the ends. 
The flowers ftand on flender pedicles rifing 
from the extremities of the ftalks, and from the 
bofoms of the upper leaves: they are large and 
beautiful; and the fegments of the cup are round- 
ed and ferrated. 
The feed-veffels are large, and pointed at the 
top: the feeds are numerons, large, winged, and 
brown. 
There are five ftyles in the flower of this 
fpecies; and the cells in the capfule are alfo 
five. 
It is a native of Carolina, and flowers in 
Augutt. 
This fpecies has been fo much miftaken by 
authors, that it has been called an Alcea. Pluke- 
net has named it Alcea floridana quinque capfularis 
laurinis foliis leviter crenatis; and others have 
followed him in this long denomination. Later 
writers have given it a peculiar name, Lafianthus : 
thefe have thought the little wing that grows to 
every feed a mark fufficient for eftablifhing a new 
genus ; but nature abhors thefe innovations. It 
is evidently an Aypericum, and agrees in flower 
and feed-veffel with all thofe {pecies of this genus 
which have five ftyles in the fower, as the oriental, 
tutfan, and the reft. 
10. Penny’s myrtle Ciftus. 
Hypericum frutefcens foliis rugofis. 
The root is large, woody, and fpreading. 
The ftem is woody, and covered with a brown 
bark: it is very much branched, brittle, and full 
of a kind of warts, or rough excrefcencies, re- 
fembling fcars, and the remains of injuries ; but 
Ge eee Ni 
they are natural, and the fame fingularity is pre’ 
ferved in the leaves. 
Thefe ftand in pairs: they are very numerous, 
of a rude green, fimall, oblong, pointed, and in 
fhape refembling thofe of myrtle; and they are 
full of the fame kind of irregular rifings with 
thofe upon the ftalks, only fmalier. 
The flowers grow at the tops of the branches, 
and they are very large and beautiful: they are 
of a fine bright yellow colour, and they have the 
threads very long. 
The feed-veffel is roundifh, but pointed; and 
the feeds are large and brown. 
The ftyles in the Aower of this fpecies are five ; 
and the cells in the fecd-veffel are alfo five. 
This is a fpecies which, like the preceding, has 
troubled fome authors to find its proper place, or 
generical name. The charaéters are the fame 
with thofe of all the Saint Fobn’ s worts which have 
five ftyles in the flower; and, accordingly, the 
beft writers have placed it among them, 
Magnol calls it Hypericum five a cyrum frutef- 
cens magno flore. Van Royen, Hypericum floribus 
pentagynis foliis et ramis verrucofs. The older 
writers have followed Clufus, who places it 
among the ciftus’s, and calls it Myrtociftus 
Pennai, from the name of Doctor Penny, its 
firft obferver; and our gardeners follow thefe 
writers, and call it Penny’s ciftus. 
We fee, by the effect the refemblance of the 
ciftus and bypericum has had upon the earlier bota- 
nifts, how extremely improper it muft be to fepa- 
rate them, as Linnaeus had done, into various 
parts of his writings. Thofe plants which could 
be confounded with one another by the lefs ac- 
curate obfervers, and which the moft juft exami- 
nation fhews to be fo much allied to one another, 
fhould certainly follow one another in the write 
ings of thofe botanifts who form their method 
upon the laws eftablifhed by nature. 
Thefe foreign fpecies of Saint Yohn’s wort, in 
general, poffefs the fame virtues with our own 
kind. They are all efteemed vulnerary and bal- 
famick. 
The coris is celebrated alfo as a diuretick and 
deobftruent. 
U. 2S Vv. 
CHICK WEED. 
UTS TONE: 
HE flower confifts of five petals, which are {pread out plain: the feed-veftel is of an oval fhape, 
formed of fix valves, but containing only a fingle cell : 
the cup is compofed of five little, 
pointed leaves, and remains when the flower is fallen, furrounding the feed-veffel : the feeds are 
numerous, rounded, and comprefied. 
Linnzus places this among the dycandria trigynia, the filamen 
flower, and the ftyles from the rudiment of the capfule three. 
racters of the genus on this foundation, is obliged to 
ant, certain, or regular; for that fome plants are fo 
3 and that in others the threads are fo uncertain, frail, 
This author, after he has eftablifhed the cha 
acknowledge that they are not always contt 
luxuriant as to have five ftyles inftead of three 
ts or threads being ten in each 
and of fhort duration, that they cannot well be numbered. 
This acknowledgement of a variation in th 
method ; for it mingles alfines, 
ceraftiums, which he arranges amo 
This author’s genera fhould be 
their bills, errors excepted. 
¢ number. of the ftyles trikes at the root of the author’s 
which he places among the decandria trigynia, with fpergulas and 
ng the decandria pentagynia. 
printed, if the reader will admit the allufion, 
as tradefmen write 
The 
