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MARRONNIER DTNDE COMMUN. (Fr.) 

 JEsculus Hippocastanu m. 



MARROW, VEGETABLE. Cucurbita 

 ovifera. 



MARRFBE. (Fr.) M&rrvMum vulgare. 



— AQFATIQUE. Lycopus europceus. — 



| BLANC. MarruMuvi vulgare. — NOIR. 



Ballota nigra. 



MARRFBIFM. This name is said to be 

 derived from the Hebrew word Marrob, 

 signifying a bitter juice, and is applied to 

 I a genus of Labiaice, of which the "White 

 Horehound is the most familiar example. 

 The genus comprises several herbaceous 

 species, natives of Southern Europe and 

 Western Asia. The calyx is five to ten- 

 nerved, and has an equal number of teeth ; 

 the corolla has the upper lip flat, entire or 

 slightly uotched, and the lower three-cleft; 

 the stamens are concealed within the tube 

 of the corolla ; and the style is cleft. 



M. vulgare, the Common or White Hore- 

 hound, has an erect branched stein densely 

 covered with cottony white hair ; the leaves 

 are roundish, crenated wrinkled and soft ; 

 the flowers whitish, crowded in the axils 

 of the leaves. This plant is occasionally 

 met with in a wild state in this country, 

 and is widely distributed throughout Eu- 

 rope and Northern Asia, and has moreover 

 become naturalised in America. It has 

 bitter tonic properties, and was once em- 

 ployed in many diseases, but has fallen into 

 disuse except as a domestic remedy in 

 chest complaints. [M. T. M.] 



MARSDENIA. A large genus of Ascle- 

 pi0.da.ce02, spread over the East Indies, Mo- 

 luccas, New Holland, and tropical America. 

 Only one species, 31. erecta, inhabits the 

 south-eastern parts of Europe. There are 

 about thirty species, either erect shrubs 

 or twiners, with opposite leaves, and in- 

 terpetiolar hunches of whitish or greenish 

 flowers. The calyx is five-cleft, the corolla 

 bell-shaped, rotate or urn-shaped, and the 

 fruit quite smooth. 31. tenacissima yields a 

 fibre which is employed for bowstrings by 

 the mountaineers of Rajmahl. The leaves 

 of 31. tiactoria and parviflora yield by de- 

 coction a blue dye resembling indigo. The 

 leaves of 31. erecta were formerly used by 

 chemists under the name of Herba Apocyni 

 folio subrotundo, and are still sometimes 

 employed. The milky juice of the plant 

 raises blisters on the skin, and taken inter- 

 nally it causes violent trembling and con- 

 vulsions, and ultimately death. [B. SJ 



MARSHALLIA. A genus of Composite 

 of the tribe Heliantlieo?, consisting of four 

 North American species, perennial herbs, 

 with alternate entire and glabrous three- 

 nerved leaves, and solitary flower-heads of 

 a pale purple or rose colour, resembling 

 those of a scabious. The involucral scales 

 are linear-lanceolate, leaflike, in one or two 

 rows, the receptacle convex or conical and 

 chaffy ; the florets are all tubular, and the 

 achenes hairy, with a pappus of five or six 

 ovate or lanceolate scales. 



MARSH-BEETLE, or MARSH-PESTLE. 

 Typha latifolia. 



MARSH-FLOWER. Limnanthemum. 



MARSHWORT. Oxy coccus palustris. 



MARSILEACE^E. A natural order of 

 pseudoferns, consisting of two distinct 

 groups, to the first of which belong 3Iar- 

 silea and Pilularia, to the second Azolla 

 and Salvinia. The aestivation is either 

 straight or circinate, formed of a meta- 

 morphosed leaf ; the receptacles one »or 

 many-celled; the antheridia in the same 

 secondary receptacle with the mostly mo- 

 nosporous sporangia, or in a distinct sac ; 

 and the prothallus confluent with the spore 

 itself. All the genera are aquatic, though, 



! after the water is dried up, some of the 

 species are still capable of maintaining life. 

 Azolla is extra-European ; the three other 

 genera occur in Europe, but have repre- 

 sentatives in other parts of the world. The 



i fossil Sphenopliyllum probably belonged to 

 the same natural order. [M. J. B.] 



MARSILEA. A genus of pseudoferns, 



I with a creeping rhizome and erect leaves 



: consisting of a long stalk and two pairs of 

 leaflets, which are circinate when young, 

 disposed in a cross, nerved somewhat after 

 the fashion of those of Adia?itoi, andwhich 

 at night fold up like the leaflets of many 

 Leguminoscc. The fruit consists of hard 

 thick receptacles, divided into several cells 



| arranged on the two sides of the principal 

 septum parallel to the flattened surfaces of 



j the receptacle. Each of these contains two 



J kinds of organs, fixed to a sort of placenta, 

 those at the base containing a single spore, 

 those above granules which at length yield 



1 spermatozoids like the small spores of 

 Selaginella. The receptacles sometimes 

 spring from the rhizome, but are sometimes 

 attached to the base of the petioles. Species 

 occur in temperate and hot climates, as the 

 South of Europe, Africa, Oregon, Madras, 

 Australia, Brazil, &c. M. macropus is the 



1 Nardoo of Australia. [M. J. B.] 



I MARSYPIANTHES. A genus of labi- 

 ates, distinguished by its bell-shaped calyx 

 having five equal erect teeth; by the upper 

 lip of the corolla being bifid, the lower 

 three-lobed, the lateral lobes nearly equal 

 in size and ovate, the middle concave with 

 an acute point ; and by each piece of the 

 fruit being concave on the inner surface, 

 the border fringed. 31. liyptoides of tropi- 

 cal America, the only species, is a procum- 

 bent annual with heads of blue-purple 

 flowers. [G. D.] 



I MARTINEZIA. A genus of tropical 

 American palms consisting of six species, 

 all of them small trees with cylindrical 

 trunks seldom more than twenty or thirty 

 feet high, and often armed with spines, as 

 also are the leaf-stalks. The leaves are 

 pinnate, with the segments of a wedge- 

 shaped or three-sided form, the broad 

 upper end being very much jagged or torn. 

 The simply-branched flower-spikes are en- 

 closed in a double spathe, the outer of 



1 which is incomplete, the spathes and the 



