ASTERACEiE. 403 



Description. — Root fusiform, fleshy. Stems several, about a foot high, round and hairy, 

 one-flowered. The leaves are pinnately divided, with narrow, linear segments of a pale 

 green colour. The flowers are large, terminal, solitary, with the florets of the disk yellow, 

 and those of the radius white above and purplish beneath ; these latter are pistillate and 

 sterile. The disk florets are perfect, and closely resemble those in Anthemis. 



Pellitory is a native of the Levant, Arabia, Barbary, and the South of 

 Europe, and has long been known as a medicinal agent. Dioscorides men- 

 tions it as useful in toothache, and Celsus speaks of it as one of the articles 

 forming a celebrated malagma or cataplasm, employed as a resolvent; he 

 also states that it is useful as opening the mouths of wounds. The part used 

 is the root, which as found in commerce, consists of inodorous pieces, about 

 the size of the little finger, covered with a thick brown bark, marked with 

 black shining points ; it breaks with a resinous fracture, and presents a 

 radiated structure. When chewed, it excites a pricking sensation in the lips 

 and tongue, with a burning heat. Grew gives a curious account of its effects ; 

 he says, " The heat produced by Pyrethrum is joined with a kind of vibration, 

 as when a flame is brandished with a lamp furnace. Being chewed, it makes 

 a sensible impression on the lips, which continues, like the flame of a coal, 

 betwixt in and out, for nine or ten minutes, but the heat in other parts much 

 longer." By distillation this root furnishes a thick, resinous oil, of great 

 pungency, and it is on this oil the properties of the root depend ; it has been 

 considered as peculiar, and called pyrelhrin ; besides this it contains colouring 

 matter, tannin, &c. 



Medical Properties. — It is an energetic local irritant, producing inflamma- 

 tion and vesication. It is scarcely ever employed internally, but is some- 

 times used as a masticatory in toothache, and in some paralytic affections of 

 the tongue, and rheumatic and neuralgic attacks in the head and face. In 

 India, according to Ainslie, it is given by the Vytians as a cordial and stimu- 

 lant in lethargic cases, in palsy, and in certain stages of typhus. It is one 

 of those articles that might be advantageously omitted in the list of officinal 

 drugs. The tincture is used to relieve toothache, under the name of odon- 

 talgic tincture. 



Achillea. — Necker. 



Heads many-flowered; rays few, or 10 — 20, pistillate, short. Scales of involucre im- 

 bricated. Receptacle flat, sometimes elongated, chaffy. Achenia oblong, ob-compressed, 

 margined, destitute of pappus. 



An extensive genus of herbaceous perennials, with alternate, mostly pinna- 

 tifid or pinnately divided leaves, and small, corymbose heads. They are 

 principally natives of Europe, a few only occurring in other parts of the 

 world. The genus was formerly much larger than at present, but the sepa- 

 ration of Ptarmica from it, has greatly reduced it. All the species are bitter 

 and somewhat aromatic. 



A. millefolium, Linn. — Cauline leaves nearly sessile, bipinnately divided. Lobes 

 linear, 3 — 5-cleft, mucronate. Radical leaves petiolate. Corymb compound, fastigiate. 

 Rays 4 — 5. 



Linn., Sp. PI. 899 ; Torrey and Gray, Fl. ii. 409 ; Bulliard, Herb. t. 163 ; 

 Eng. Bot. 758. 



Common Names. — Yarrow; Milfoil. 



Foreign Names. — Millefeuille, Fr. ; Millefoglie, It. ; Garbenkraut, Ger. 



This plant is common to Europe and North America, growing in fields and 

 woods, and flowering almost the whole summer. The American plant is pos- 



