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NAT. ORDER. — LILIACE^E. 
cultivated in various parts of Greece, both as ornaments, and 
for medicinal purposes. 
Propagation and Culture. To raise these plants from seed, 
great caution is necessary, that we select the best flowers — 
such as have become fully grown, and well ripened, as some- 
times the roots lose their fibres, and the stalks dry before 
the seed is half ripe. This seed is generally ready for gather- 
ing about the middle of July, or later, if the season proves 
backward, which can be known by the dryness of the stalks, 
or opening of the seed-vessels. The whole plant should be 
taken with the roots, letting the seed remain in the pods till 
the first of October. It may then be taken out, and cleansed 
from the chaff, and s:^wn in beds of fine sifted earth, care being 
taken that the seed is covered about half an inch in depth. 
About the end of June, the second year after sowing, they 
should be taken up, and the small roots cleansed, and set again 
in rows, at a wider distance, and so continued every other year, 
until they bear flowers, but altering the ground with fresh earth. 
Medical Properties and Uses. The root is the part directed 
for medicine ; and if we are to give credit to the writings of 
the ancients, in regard to its effects, we shall describe it as 
possessing extraordinary properties for the removal of all pul- 
monary complaints. By the ancients, it was extensively used 
in coughs, catarrhs, consumptions, and more particularly as a 
generator of blood. The expressed juice of the plant was for- 
merly used, in doses of from one to three fluidrachms, taken 
every morning, and on going to bed. In this form it was given 
by them, as a tonic, acting chiefly on the urinary organs, both 
stimulating and exciting ; and was often administered for inflam- 
mation of the k'dneys, bladder and spleen. 
