DORl] 



Wfyz CrcaSurw ol SBatang. 



424 



and more prominent than the two lateral ; 

 oil channels four, on the inner surface of 

 each half of the fruit. D. ammoniucum 

 furnishes the drug now known as ammo- 

 niacum. It is a native of Persia, and 

 abounds in a milky juice which exudes 

 upon the slightest puncture being made, 

 and dries upon the stem in little rounded 

 lumps, or tears as they are called. This 

 gum resin is used as a stimulant expector- 

 ant, and as an external application, but its 

 powers are not great. The ammoniacum 

 of the ancients is said to have been the 

 produce of Ferula tingitana. [M. T. M.j 



DORINE. (Fr.) Chrysosplenium. 



DORITIS. A small genus of caulescent 

 epiphytal orchids found in Cochin-china 

 and New Guinea. They have ovate or ob- 

 long leaves, and axillary panicles of small 

 white or purple flowers. The sepals are 

 oblong, the lateral ones decurrent with 

 the column; the petals, nearly equal and 

 wedge-shaped ; the lip trifld, with a long 

 claw attached by an elastic joint to the 

 produced foot of the column, and the two 

 bilobed pollen masses are borne on the 

 end of a long slender caudicle attached to 

 an ovate gland. [A. A. B.] 



DORONICUM. A family of herbaceous 

 perennials belonging to the order of com- 

 pound flowers. The florets of the ray are 

 destitute of a pappus, while those of the 

 disk have a hairy pappus. D. Pardalianches, 

 though enumerated among British plants, 

 is not generally considered to be indigen- 

 ous to the soil. It is to be found in waste 

 ground near houses in several parts of Eng- 

 land, and yet more frequently in Scotland. 

 Under the name of Pardalianches, or Leo- 

 pard's-bane.it had the reputation of posses- 

 sing 'virtues so ambiguous,' says Gerarde, 

 'and so doubtfull : yea, and so full of con- 

 troversies, that I dare not to commit that 

 to the world which I have read. It is re- 

 ported and affirmed that it killeth pan- 

 thers, swine, wolves, and all kindes of 

 wilde beasts, being given them with flesh. 

 Theophrastus saith that it killeth cattle, 

 sheepe, oxen, and all fower-footed beasts 

 within the compasse of a day: yet he 

 writeth further, that the roote being 

 drunke is a remedie against the stiugings 

 of scorpions, which sheweth that this 

 herbe or the roote thereof is not deadly to 

 man, but to divers beasts onely, which 

 thing also is f ound out by triall and mani- 

 fest experience : for Conradus Gesnerus, 

 a man in our time singularly learned, and 

 a most diligent searcher of many things, 

 sheweth that he himself, in a certain epistle 

 written to Adolphus Occo, hath often- 

 times inwardly taken the roote heereof 

 greene, chie, whole, preserved with honie, 

 and also beaten to powder, and that 

 even on the A'ery same day in which he 

 wrote these things, he had drunke, with 

 warme water, two drams of the rootes 

 made into fine powder, neither felt he any 

 hurt thereby.' The fact appears to be that 

 the leopards and other 'fower-footed 

 beasts' were poisoned with aconite, one 



of the authoi - 's synonyms for Pardalian- 

 ches : while the human experimentalist 

 found the powdered root of the latter 

 plant inert. Leopard's-bane is a robust 

 plant, with large roughish leaves and con- 

 spicuous yellow flower-heads. There are 

 several species natives of Europe or Asia, 

 some of which are cultivated as orna- 

 mental plants. French, JDoronic ; German, 

 Gemsenwurz. [C. A. J.] 



DORSIFEROUS. Bearing something on 

 the back. 



DORSTENIA. A genus of moraceous 

 plants named after Dorsten, a German 

 author. It is associated with mulberries 



Dorstenia ceratosanthes. 



and figs. The genus has a flat and some- 

 what concave receptacle bearing numerous 

 flowers. The staminate flowers have no 

 perianth, but two or more stamens. The 

 pistillate flowers are also without a peri- 

 anth ; the ovary is one-celled with a lateral 

 style and bifid stigma, containing one 

 ovule. The fruit-bearing receptacle be- 

 comes somewhat succulent. There are 

 thirty-six known species. They are herba- 

 ceous plants found In tropical America. 

 They have radical leaves which are palmate 

 or pinnatifid, and the receptacle termi- 

 nating the scape is quadrangular or 

 rounded, or occasionally linear and forked. 

 D. Contrayerva and other species have a 

 stimulant and tonic rhizome, which is used 

 medicinally under the name of Contra- 

 yerva-root. [J. H. B.] 



DORSUM. The back of anything; in 

 the parts of the flower, that surface which 

 looks towards the outside. 



DORTANTHES. A genus of New Hol- 

 land Amaryllidacece, having what Herbert 

 calls imperfect bulbs, a tall straight stem 

 twenty feet high, springing from an aloe- 

 like tuft of broadly ensiform-spreading 

 basal leaves, the stem itself clothed with 

 much smaller appressed ones, and ter- 

 minated by a bulky compound flower-head 

 composed of crimson flowers emerging 

 from great half-sheathing crimson bracts. 

 The perianth is six-parted and funnel- 

 shaped, the segments nearly equal ; the six 

 stamens, having long erect anthers, are in- 

 serted into the base of the perianth seg. 



