teag] 



€f)£ Crratfurg of 2Sotang. 



1160 



climbing habit, and have serrated or lobed 

 leaves, axillary flowers, the females few 

 in number, situated at the base of the ra- 

 cemes, the males more numerous, all pro- 

 vided with entire or three-cleft bracts. The 

 male flowers have a tarpartite calyx, 

 en closing three stamens ; the females asix- 

 parted calyx, with persistent occasionally 

 divided segments, a three-celled ovary 

 with one ovule in each compartment, a 

 three-cleft style, and capsular fruit. Some 

 of the species have medicinal virtues. 

 Thus an infusion of the root of T. canna- 

 bina is employed as a diaphoretic and 

 alterative in India, where also the juice of 

 T. Chamcelea, mixed with wine or oil, is 

 esteemed astringent and tonic. The root 

 of T. involucrata is employed in India as a 

 tonic and alterative in syphilitic maladies. 

 The caustic juice of T volubilis is likewise 

 used as an application to ulcers. The spe- 

 cies possess little beauty. [M. T. M.j 



TRAGOPOGON". A genus of Composite, 

 inhabiting Europe and the temperate 

 parts of Asia, and consisting of biennial 

 or perennial herbs, having simple or 

 branched stems, narrow grass-like leaves, 

 and distinct terminal flower-heads of a yel- 

 low or purple colour. The heads are many- 

 flowered, and the florets all ligulate and 

 perfect.containingboth stamens and ovary. 

 The involucre has from eight to sixteen 

 leaves, in one row, connected at the base ; 

 and the receptacle is naked or nearly so, 

 and deeply indented. The fruits are all of 

 the same form, having a long beak, alateral 

 areole, and the feathery pappus or seed- 

 down in many rows,— that of the external 

 row of fruits being interwoven. 



Among the species of this genus is the 

 culinary vegetable called Salsafy, T. porrU 

 folius, a biennial indigenous to Britain 

 and the Continent of Europe. It is distin- 

 guished by its smooth long narrow taper- 

 ing acuminated leaves ; by its peduncles 

 being much thickened, and hollow at the 

 apex ; by its eight-leaved involucre, which 

 is usually longer than the florets ; and by 

 its rose-coloured or purple flowers. 



Salsafy has a long fusiform root full of 

 milky juice, on which its salutary qualities 

 depend. In colour it resembles the pars- 

 nip, of which it has also nearly the flavour, 

 but is more agreeable. It ranks as one of 

 the most salubrious of culinary vegetables, 

 being antibilious.cooling, deobstruent, and 

 slightly aperient ; but although it is deser- 

 vedly esteemed as an esculent, it is never- 

 theless decidedly inferior to Scorzonera in 

 these properties ; nor does it keep so well 

 when taken out of the ground, as it soon 

 becomes hardened, insipid, and difficult to 

 cook properly. When taken by the invalid 

 as a remedy for indigestion, it is important 

 to know that the precautions necessary in 

 cooking it are the same as with Scorzo- 

 nera (which see), it being borne in mind 

 that Salsafy usually requires a rather long- 

 er time boiling. It grows more freely than 

 Scorzonera, and when fresh from the garden 

 it is perhaps inferior only to that vegetable 

 in its medicinal properties. [B. C] 



TRAGOPYRUM. A genus of Polygona- 

 cece, natives of Russia and Siberia, consist- 

 ing of shrubs with divaricate branches, 

 sometimes spinous at the point, furnished 

 with oblong or elliptical entire leathery 

 leaves on short stalks, and racemose flow- 

 ers on nodding pedicels. They have a 

 coloured five-leaved perianth, the inner 

 three segments larger than the rest, eight 

 stamens, three very short styles with capi- 

 tate stigmas,and a three-edged nut inclosed 

 in the three inner perianth-leaves, the two 

 outer ones being reflexed. [JT.S.] 



TRAGUS. A genus of grasses of the 

 tribe Panicew, now included in Lappago. 



TRAILING Of an elongated prostrate 

 habit of growth. 



TRAILLIA. A genus of Cruciferce from 

 Mesopotamia. It consists of an annual 

 with the habit of "Vella annua, having ri- 

 gid hairy branches, with few oblong leaves 

 decurrent into the petioles, and small 

 yellow flowers. The pouch is indehiscent, 

 rough and one-seeded, crowned by the 

 broad rigid leaf-like style. [J. T. S.] 



TRAINASSE. (Fr.) Polygonum avicu- 

 lave ; also Agrostis stolonifera. 



TRAMA. A name given in mycology to 

 the substance which separates the two 

 surfaces of the gills of an Agaricus, or of 

 two contiguous pores in Polyporus. It 

 varies much in structure, and affords good 

 definitions of genera, In Agaricus, for 

 example, it is filamentous; in Russula and 

 Lactariiis vesicular. In some cases it is 

 of the same substance with that of the 

 pileus, as in Trametes ; in others it is diffe- 

 rent, as in such Polypori as P. destructor. 

 In Schizophyllum it is completely exposed 

 by the splitting of the gills along their 

 edge into two plates. [M. J. BJ 



TRAMETES. A genus separated by 

 Fries from Polyporus, originally intended 

 to receive those species in which the sub- 

 stance of the walls of the pores (or trama, 

 as it is called by botanists) is continued 

 immediately from the pileus without any 

 change. So limited, the best-known British 

 species is T. suaveolens, which grows occa- 

 sionally in this country on the dead trunks 

 of willows and limes, and is at once known 

 by its larger pores from T. odora, which has 

 the same strong smell of aniseed. Fries 

 has, however, of late proposed a different 

 definition of the genus. In a large portion 

 of Polyporus, including such common spe- 

 cies as P. versicolor, the trama though nar- 

 row is of the same substance as the flesh 

 of the pileus. They differ, however, from 

 typical species of Trametes in the fact that 

 the pores, which are developed in a centri- 

 fugal direction, are perpendicular to the 

 fibrillose stratum above the portion in 

 connection with the trama, whereas in 

 Trametes the whole pileus and trama are of 

 the same substance. The species are 

 placed in a genus named Polysticlus, while 

 Polyporus is routined to those in which 

 the trama and suhstanre from which it 

 springs are different in texture. These 



