THE TRUE HEMP PLANT. 315 
to consider these points, we may first notice the botanical 
affinities of the plant. — 
By the celebrated Jussieu, the Hemp and the Hop plants 
were placed in the same natural family (Urticee) with the 
Nettles. In more modern works, they are either continued as a 
tribe of the same family, under the name of Cannabinee, or 
these containing only the genera Cannabis and Lupulus are 
separated into a distinct family, under the same or a nearly 
similar name. These two plants are closely connected in pro- 
perties, as in structure. 
The Hop (Humulus Lupulus), besides a bitter, secretes a 
resinous principle: Hop bines abounding in fibre, have often 
been proposed to be turned to useful account, for cordage or 
paper, but as yet to little extent. 
The Hemp plant likewise secretes a resinous principle in 
its leaves, on which account these, as well as the churrus 
collected from off the young tops of the stem and flowers, is 
highly esteemed in all Eastern countries, on account of its 
exhilarating and intoxicating properties. Hence, among the 
Arabs the Hemp has a variety of names, as “ the increaser of 
pleasure,” “the cementer of friendship,” &c. By its name of 
Hasheesh it is often mentioned in the works of travellers in 
Egypt, Arabia, and Syria; while the name of Bhang is not 
less celebrated in the far East. The Author has treated 
together of these two plants, in his ‘Manual of Materia 
Medica,’ pp. 622—629, 2d ed., from which he extracts the 
following description of the plant: 
The Hemp is a diccious (occasionally monecious) annual, from 3 to 
10 feet high, according to soil and climate. Root white, fusitorm, furnished 
with fibres. The stem erect; when crowded, simple; but when growing 
apart, branched even from the bottom, angular, and, like the whole plant, 
covered with fine but rough pubescence. This stem is hollow within, or only 
filled with a soft pith. This pith is surrounded by a tender, brittle substance, 
consisting chiefly of cellular texture, with some woody fibres, which is called 
the reed, boon, and shove of the Hemp. Over this we have the thin bark, 
composed of fibres, extending in a parallel direction all along the stalk. 
These fibres consist of delicate fibrils, united together by cellular tissue, and 
all covered by the thin membrane or cuticle. ; 
The leaves are opposite or alternate, on long petioles, scabrous, digitate, 
composed of from 5 to 7 narrow, lanceolate, sharply serrated leaflets, of 
which the lower are the smallest, all tapering at the apex into a long entire 
point. Stipules subulate. Males on a separate plant. Flowers in drooping, 
axillary, or racemose panicles, with subulate bracts. Perianth 5-parted; 
segments not quite equal, downy. Stamens5; filaments short; anthers 
