178 
The BRITISH HERBAL. 
9. B;iy-Icaved S;^int John's wort. 
Hypericum fohis Liur'niis ftminihus alalis. 
T'he root is long, large, woody, and fpread- 
ing. 
The ftem is firm, woody, brittle, and very 
much branched ; and is covered with a pale 
brown bark. 
The leaves arc numerous, oblong, and of a 
pale green ; they are delicately ferrated at the 
edges, and obtufe at the ends. 
The fiowers fland on (lender pedicles rifing 
from the extremities of the llalks, and from the 
bofoms of the upper leaves : they are large and 
beautiful ; and the fegments of the cup are round- 
ed and ferrated. 
The feed-veffels are large, and pointed at the 
top: the feeds are numcrons, large, winged, and 
brown. 
There are five llyles in the flower of this 
fpecies j and the cells in the capfule are a)fo 
five. 
It is a native of Carolina, and flowers in 
Auguft. 
This fpecies has been fo much miftaken by 
authors, that it has been called an Akea. Pluke- 
net has named it Akea floridana quinque capfularis 
laurinis foliis leviter crenatis ; and others have 
followed him in this long denomination. Later 
writers have given it a peculiarname, Lafianthiis : 
thefe have thought the little wing that grows to 
every feed a mark fufficient for eltablifliing a new 
genus ; but nature abhors thefe innovations. It 
is evidently an hypericum^ and agrees in flower 
and feed-veflTel with all thofe fpecies of this genus 
which have five ftyles in the flower, as the crkntal, 
ttitfan^ and the reft. 
10. Penny's myrtle Ciftus. 
Hypericum frutefcem foliis rugojis. 
The root is large, woody, and fpreadlng. 
The ftem is woody, and covered with a brown 
bark : it is very much branched, brittle, and full 
of a kind of warts, or rough [excrefcencies, re- 
fcmbling fears, and the remains of injuries ; but 
they are natural, and the fame fingularity is pre- 
ferved in the leaves. 
Thefe fthud in pairs : they are very numerous, 
of a rude gi-cen, fmall, oblong, pointed, and in 
fhape refemhiing thofe of myrtle; and they are 
full of the fame kind of irregular rifings with 
thofe upon the ftalks, only fmaller. 
The flowers grow at the tops of the branches, 
and they are very large and beautiful : they are 
of a fine bright yellow colour, and they have the 
threads very long. 
The fced-veffel is roundifli, but pointed ; and 
the feeds are large and brown. 
The ftyles in the flower of this fpecies are five; 
and the cells in the feed-vefl*el are alfo five. 
This is a fpecies which, like the preceding, has 
troubled fome authors to find its proper place, or 
generical name. The charafters are the fame 
with thofe of all the Saint John's worts which have 
five ftyles in the flower ; and, accordingly, the 
bcft writers have placed it among them. 
Magnol calls it Hypericum free ajcyrum fiutef- 
cens magnofiore. Van Royen, Hypiriciim Jloribus 
pentagynis foliis et ramis verruco/is. The older 
writers have followed Clufius, who places it 
among the ciftus's, and calls it Myrtocijlus 
Pennm^ from the name of Dodlor Penny, its 
firft obferver ; and our gardeners follow thefe 
writers, and call it Pemy^s cifius. 
We fee, by the effeft the refemblance of the 
cijius and hypericum has had upon the earlier bota- 
nifts, bow extremely improper it muft be to fepa- 
rate them, as Linnreus had done, into various 
parts of his writings. Thofe plants which could 
be confounded with one another by the Icfs ac- 
curate obfervers, and which the moft juft exami- 
nation ftiews to be fo much allied to one another, 
ihould certainly follow one another in the writ- 
ings of thofe botanifts who form their method 
upon the laws eftabliftied by nature. 
Thefe foreign fpecies of Saint JohCs wort^ in 
general, poflefs the fame virtues with our own 
kind. They are all efteemed vulnerary and bal- 
famick. 
The coris is celebrated alfo as a diuretick and 
deobftruent. 
GENUS V. 
CHICKWEED. 
A L S I N E. 
THE flower confifts of five petals, which are Tpread out plain ; the feed-veflil is of an oval (liape, 
formed of fix valves, but containing only a fingle cell : the cup is compofcd of five little, 
pointed leaves, and remains when the flower is fallen, furrounding the fced-veflil : the feeds are 
numerous, rounded, and comprefled. 
Linnxus places this among the dycmiiria trigynia ; the filaments or threads being ten in each 
flower, and the fl-yles from the rudiment of the capfule three. 
This author, after he has eflabiiflied the charafters of the genus on this foundation, is obliged to 
acknowledge that they are not always conftant, certain, or regular; for that fome plants are fo 
luxuriant as to have five fl:yles inftcad of three ; and that in others the threads are fo uncertain, frail, 
and of fliort duration, that they cannot well be numbered. 
This acknowledgement of a variation in the number of the ftyles flrikcs at the root of the author's 
method ; for it mingles alfines, which he places among the decandria trigynia, with fpergulas and 
ceraJliumSy which he arranges among the decandria penlagyjiia. 
This author's genera fhould be printed, if the reader will admit the allufion, as tradefmen write 
their bills, errors excepted. 
The 
