APIACEiE. 315 



leaves that are often prickly. The flowers are usually blue or white, and 

 bracteated, the lower bracts being involucrate, the others intermixed with the 

 flowers in the form of scales. There are nine or ten species found in the 

 United States, some of which are medicinal, as are also some of those pecu- 

 liar to Europe. 



E. maritimum, Linn. — Radical leaves roundish, plaited, spinous. Scales of the recep- 

 tacle 3-cleft. 



Linn., Sp. PI. 337 ; Woodville, i. 120 ; Stephenson and Churchill, iii. 143. 

 Common Names. — Eryngo ; Sea Holly. 



Foreign Names. — Panicaut maritime, Fr. ; Eringio marino, It.; Meer- 

 strandmanstreu, Ger. 



Description. — Root creeping, horizontal, cylindrical, about as thick as a finger, very 

 long. Stem about a foot high, round, branched, striated, leafy. Radical leaves roundish 

 or reniform, petiolated, plaited, 3-lobed ; those of the stem sessile, the whole smooth, of a 

 glaucous colour, and armed with sharp spines, like those of the holly. The flowers are 

 disposed at the ends of the stem and branches, in dense, conical heads. They are small, 

 numerous, of a bright-blue colour, and separated by small, rigid scales, and surrounded 

 at base by a pinnatifid, spinous involucrum. The scales are 3-toothed. The calyx is 

 superior, consisting of five erect, equal sepals. The corolla has five, equal, oblong petals, 

 with their points inflexed. The stamens are five, longer than the corolla, with oblong 

 anthers. The ovary is ovate-oblong, hispid, crowned with two filiform styles, bearing 

 simple stigmas. The fruit is bristly, separable into two parts, and consisting of a like 

 number of oblong, nearly cylindrical seeds. 



The Sea Holly is found in most of the maritime parts of Europe, on sandy 

 beaches, flowering in July and August. It was well known to the ancients, 

 and is spoken of by Dioscorides as an antilithic, and became very celebrated, 

 till within the last century, for the numerous virtues it was supposed to possess. 

 Not to speak of earlier writers, Boerhaave quotes it as the first of the ape- 

 rient diuretic roots ; and it was much used by his contemporaries in gonor- 

 rhoea and visceral obstructions, particularly of the gall-bladder and kidneys. 

 But the most eminent of the powers attributed to it, were those of provoking 

 the menstrual discharge, for which it was considered as a specific that 

 scarcely ever failed ; nor was it less celebrated as a febrifuge in paroxysmal 

 fevers. Baglivi speaks of it in high terms in affections of the bladder. At a 

 later period it was much praised by Drs. Hoffmann and Guthe, of Manheim, 

 in phthisis. In fact, no article of the Materia Medica was at one time in 

 greater repute than this, nor any one that has more completely been forgot- 

 ten. It must be possessed of some active powers, to have so long maintained 

 its reputation, and the subsequent neglect of it can only be attributed to one 

 of those caprices, unfortunately too common with regard to remedial articles, 

 scarcely one of which has not been successively lauded to the skies, to be 

 laid aside and forgotten, in a few years to be again restored to favour. 



Among its other virtues, it was much esteemed for its aphrodisiac qualities, 

 which appear to have been noticed at a very early period, and are constantly 

 alluded to by the dramatists and poets of the Elizabethian and succeeding 

 ages. Shakspeare frequently notices it, as does Prior in one of his tales, 

 The root was prepared candied, at Colchester, in England, and sold in con- 

 siderable quantities, as we are told by Sir J. E. Smith (Eng. Bot.) The part 

 used in medicine is also the root ; this has a sweet, agreeable taste and aro- 

 matic smell ; it gives out its properties to water. 



The E. campestre, also a native of Europe, is possessed of the same qua- 

 lities, and is employed in the same way. A. native species, the E. aquati- 

 cum, which occurs in low, wet places, from Virginia to Florida, has been 

 used with some success as a diaphoretic and expectorant. In large doses it 



