260 COMPOSITE. [Pyrethrum. 



florets in 5 acute reflexed segments, covered with conical glands or papillae. Stylf 

 included, cleft ; stigmas flat, glandular. Achenia whiu4i brown, a line or more 

 in length, oblong, a little tapering and curved, cylindrical or angular, truncate at 

 both ends, deeply grooved' or fluted, glabrous, those of the ray suhcompressed, and 

 dilated laterally into a thin, often very broad, alate margin. Receptacle naked, 

 slightly convex, blactish, and thickly dotted with the very shallow circular alveoli, 

 that are surrounded by a minute scariose border. 



XIV. Pyretheum, Holler. Feverfew. 



" Fruit crowned with a membranaceous border. Receptacle 

 naked. Involucre hemispherical or nearly flat, the scales imbri- 

 cated, membranaceous at their margins." — Br. Fl. 



t ? 1. P. Parthenium, Sm. Common Feverfew. Vect. White- 

 wort. " Leaves petiolate flat bipinnate the segments ovate cut, 

 peduncles branched corymbose, stem erect, involucre hemisphe- 

 rical downy."— 5r. Fl. p. 242. E. B. t. 1231. Matricaria, L. 



In waste rubbishy places, on banks, wall-tops, by waysides and about hedges, 

 chiefly in the neighbourhood of habitations ; not unfrequent, but scarcely appear- 

 ing as if truly indigenous. Fl. July, August. 2^ or $ (Sm.) ? 



E. Med. — On the Dover by Kyde castle, and at Binstead. Wall at E. Cowes. 

 Quarr abbey. Abundant on the high bank by the entrance-gate at Steephill. 

 Luccombe, Shanklin chine, &c., B. T. W. Bembridge, on waste ground near the 

 sea. Miss Theodora Price .'.'.' 



W. Med. — At Paradise, near Newport. 



Root (vhizoma) creeping horizontally and sending out abundant pale slender 

 fibres. Stems about 1-^ or 2 feet high, erect, rounded, solid and furrowed, leafy, more 

 or less downy, usually simple near the base, much and alternately branched above, 

 the branches almost erect. Leaves alternate, petiolate, pale green, somewhat gray 

 or hoary with fine short pubescence, pitted all over beneath with minute depres- 

 sions, deeply pinnalo-pinnatifid, of 3 or 4 pairs of ovate or ovate-oblong, flat, 

 variously cut lobes, whose segments are mostly obtuse, broad, rounded and entire, 

 each tipped with a minute pellucid point. Petioles flat above or semiterete, 

 slightly winged. Head of jloxcers (anthoidia) corymbose, rather small, about 

 J inch in diameter, solitary, on long, deeply grooved, angular, simple or slightly 

 branched peduncles, that are gradually enlarged upwards, and mostly furnished 

 at no determiuate distance from their summit with one or sometimes two minute 

 subulate bracts. Involucre depresso-hemisphevical, its bracts closely imbricated, 

 unequal, linear-oblong, obtuse, a little downy, with a thick, prominent, dark green 

 keel, and broad, transparent, ciliato-laciniated margins. Receptacle nearly hemi' 

 spherical, quite naked, with circular, very shallow, scarcely at all depressed 

 alveoli, their edges quite smooth and even. Florets of the disk very small and 

 numerous, yellow, segments of the limb short, triangular, thickened, and sprinkled 

 with a few resinous globules ; fiords of the circumference rather few (about 10 or 

 12), distantly inserted, very short, green, glabrous, segments of the style straight, 

 as long as the tube ; ray short and broad, ovato-elliptical, 2- or 3- toothed at the 

 summit. Acheniiim glabrous, quadrangular, slightly curved, strongly and longi- 

 tudinally ribbed, the costee with a row of crystalline points. 



A common herb in rustic gardens, from whence it readily escapes. The Eng- 

 lish name, significant of its antipyretic reputation, is either a corruption oi febri- 

 fuge, or more likely of f core feu, from the ardour of the hot fit it was supposed to 

 have the power of allaying in intermittents ; or it may be from the heatmg qua- 

 lity attributed to the plant itself by the older writers, who prescribed its employ- 

 ment in diseases the most opposite in their nature. The whole secret of its 

 eflicacy lies in its powerfully bitter and tonic properties. 



