574 



MEDICAL BOTANY. 



Humulus. — Linn. 



Dioecious. Sterile flowers : sepals 5, oblong-, concave, obtuse. Stamens 5 ; filaments 

 capillary, very short; anthers oblong, vertical, 2-celled, dehiscing- by 2 slits. Fertile 

 flowers : catkin of many, imbricated, membranous, l-ijpwered bracts. Calyx wanting, 

 except a bracteole, which environs the ovary. Stigmas 2, subulate, spreading, downy. 

 Achenium attached to the base of the enlarged, dry bracteole, roundish ; pericarp hard, 

 brittle, covered by roundish aromatic glands. 



This genus contains but a single species, which is officinal. 



H. lupulus, Linn. — A pe- 

 Fig. 249. rennial plant, with annual, 



twining, angular, scabrous, 

 sparsely hairy stems, twining 

 from right to left. Leaves op- 

 posite, on long petioles, the 

 smaller ones cordate, the lar- 

 ger 3 — 5-lobed, serrated, and 

 very rough. Flowering 

 branches axillary, angular, 

 and scabrous. Stipules 2 — 4, 

 between the petioles, ovate, 

 reflexed. Flowers numerous, 

 and of a greenish-yellow co- 

 lour. The sterile ones very 

 numerous and panicled. Se- 

 pals 5, oblong, obtuse, spread- 

 ing, concave. Stamens short ; 

 anthers oblong, opening by 2 

 terminal pores. The fertile 

 flowers, on a separate plant, 

 in the form of an ament, with 

 each pair of flowers support- 

 ed by a bract, which is ovate, 

 acute, tubular at base. Sepals 

 solitary, obtuse, smaller than 

 the bracts, and enveloping 

 the ovary. Ovary roundish, 

 compressed ; stigmas 2, su- 

 bulate, tomentose. The bracts 

 enlarge into a persistent cat- 

 kin, each of them covering a 

 nut, enclosed in its perma- 

 nent bracteole, and some 

 grains of a yellow resinous 

 secretion. 



H. lupulus. 

 o Male flower, b Female do. c Sepal or bracteole 

 c Embryo. /Lupulinic gland. 



d Bract. 



Linn., Sp. PL 1457; 



Eng. Bot. 427; Bige- 



Rafinesque, Med. Flor. i. 246; Lindley, 



low, Med. Bot. iii. 164, t. 60 

 Fl. Med., 296. 



Common Names. — Hop ; Hop-vine. 



Foreign Names. — Houblon, Fr. ; Luppulo, It. ; Hopfen, Ger. 



The Hop is a native of Europe, and probably of North America, as it was 

 found by Mr. Nuttall, plentifully, on the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri. 

 It is also indigenous in the Canaries, and is said to occur in China. It was 

 known to the ancients, if it is, as is supposed, the Lupus salictarius of Pliny. 

 It was cultivated at an early period, for, in the ninth century, Hop grounds 

 are spoken of as existing to some extent in Germany, and in the thirteenth in 



