104 



The retamilla (linum aquilinum) or g nancu lahueny 

 grows usually at the foot of the mountains. The 

 root is very long and perennial ; it puts forth several 

 branchy stalks, furnished with small alternate lanceo- 

 îated leaves; the flowers are yellow, with five petals, 

 and are attached by pairs to a common pedicle; 

 the pistil becomes changed into a membranaceous 

 pentagonal capsule, containing a number of little 

 seeds. This plant possesses the same virtues as the 

 viravira, and is used in the same cases. 



The pay CO (hemiaria payco"^) by which name it is 

 known in many modern medical works, is also deno- 

 minated tea of the third species, although it apper- 

 tains to the genus of hemiaria. It puts forth seve- 

 ral trailing shoots, covered with small oval leaves, 

 notched like a saw, and attached to the stalk without 

 a petiole. The flowers have many stamina, and 

 are very numerous; the seed is enclosed in a spheri- 

 cal capsule; the colour of the plant is a light green, 

 and its smell is something: like that of a rotten lime. 

 As a medicine it promotes digestion, is excellent in 

 complaints of the stomach, and very useful in the 

 pleurisy.f 



sion of which was found to be very serviceable by a French sur- 

 geon in the cure of tertian fevers. There is also a species of 

 senna perfectly resembling that of the Levant, in the place of 

 which it is used by the apothecaries of St. Jago ; it is called by tVie 

 Indians unofierquen. — Frazier^s Voyage^ vol. i. 



* All the plants of the genus hemiaria that are known, and 

 îiave an afBniiy to them, as the ilecebrum, the achyrantes, &c. havc^ 

 their leaves entire, without being jagged or indented ; of course 



this instance presents an exception from the general rule Fr. 



Trans. 



t The payco is a plant of middling height, whose leaves are m 

 îîttle dentated, and have a snxell like a rotten lime ; a decoctioa- 



