42 



BOTANICAL NOTICES OF NEW PLANTS. 



well as Great Britain. There is also added, the derivation or some account of 

 the origin of the generic names ; and a running number is attached to the genera 

 and species, which the author believes will be found very useful." The same 

 author has also announced a new edition of the late Sir James Edward Smith's 

 " Introduction to Physiological and Systematical Botany," with considerable 

 additions, which will form a very suitable companion to the volume above men- 

 tioned. To those who are satisfied with the Linnean arrangement, these two 

 volumes offer every necessary information connected with the investigation of 

 the British flowering plants. 



A Manual of British Botany, in which the Orders and Genera are arranged 

 and described, according to the Natural System of Decandolle ; with a series of 

 Analytical Tables for the assistance of the Student in the examination of the 

 Plants indigenous to or commonly cultivated in Great Britain. By D. C. 

 Macreight, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and Lecturer on 

 Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Middlesex Hospital School of Medicine. 



We hail with peculiar pleasure the appearance of this little volume, as being 

 one of the very few which have been published in this kingdom, illustrative of the 

 Natural system. 



The student who is disposed to take a more philosophical view of the 

 vegetable kingdom, as developed in the Natural system, and is consequently 

 desirous of making himself acquainted with the principles upon which that system 

 is founded, will find his efforts materially assisted by the possession of this work. 

 The " Key to Botany," of Professor Lindley, may also be studied with great 

 advantage; and as regards British Botany, Lindley's Synopsis will be found 

 highly useful, of which we shall be anxious to see a new edition. 



BOTANICAL NOTICES OF NEW PLANTS. 



DICOTYLEDONES. 

 LEGUMINOSiE, § PAPILIONACEvE. Lindl. 



Mucuna pruriens. D. C. West Indian Cowitch Plant. Bot. Reg. N. S. 

 t. 18. The specimen from which the drawing was taken was communicated by 

 Frederick Perkins, Esq., of Chipstead Place, in whose house it produced, in 

 September 1836, an abundance of its long handsome racemes of purple flowers. 

 The substance called cowitch is probably obtained from this plant. It is the 

 long sharp brittle hairs that clothe the pods, and some other parts of this, and 

 other allied plants. When applied to the skin they produce an intolerable 

 itching; this is not owing to anything deleterious in the hairs themselves, 

 but to their mechanical action, as they break and pierce the skin. It is 

 on this account that cowitch has been used medicinally as an anthelmintic. 



