EOS 
BOT 
£ 0 T 
downwards, next upwards, and at the tips j 
curving inwards) ; inhabits the interior parts 1 
of Africa, north of the Cape of Good Hope, 
and is greatly superior in size to the largest 
English ox. It is of a very strong and mus- 
cular form, with a fierde and malevolent as- 
pect. Its colour is a deep cinereous brown : 
the hair on tire body is rather short, but that 
ou the head and breast very long, coarse, 
and black, hanging down the dewlap, like 
tnat of a bison : from the hind part of the 
head to the middle of the back is also a loose 
black mane : the tail is nearly naked at the 
base ; the remainder being covered with 
long loose hair. 
These animals are found in large herds in 
the desert parts beyond the Cape ; and if met 
in the narrow parts of woods, are extremely 
dangerous, rushing suddenly on the travel- 
ler, goring and trampling both man and 
horse under foot. It is also said that they 
will often strip off the skin of such animals 
as they have killed, by licking them with 
their rough tongues, as recorded by some of 
the ancient authors of the bison. The urcus 
is the same animal with the common bull in 
its natural and wild state. See Plate Nat. 
Hist. iig. 58. See also figs. 56 and 57. 
BOSCOI, or Bosci, a tribe of monks in 
Palestine, who fed on grass like the beasts of 
the field. They are ranked among the num- 
ber of Adamites, on account of the little 
care they took about provision ; when they 
were hungry, they went into the fields, each 
with his knife in his hand, and gathered and 
ate what they could find. 
BOSEA, golden-rod tree : a genus of 
the digynia order, and pentandria class of 
plants ; and in the natural method ranking 
under the 53d order scabridae. The calyx 
is pentaphyllous ; there is no corolla, and the 
berry is monospermous. Of this genus there 
is but one species, viz. 
Bosea yervamora. It is a native of the 
Canary and Caribbee islands, and has been 
long an inhabitant of the British botanic gar- 
dens. It is a pretty strong woody shrub, 
rowing with a stem as large as a man’s leg. 
t may be propagated by cutting^ planted in 
spring ; and the plants must fie housed in 
winter. 
BOSS, among bricklayers, denotes a 
Wooden utensil in which the mortar used in 
tiling is to be put. it lias an 'iron hook by 
which it may be hung on the laths or on the 
ladder. 
, BOSSAGE, in architecture, a term used 
for any stone that has a projecture, and is 
laid rough in a building to be afterwards 
carved into mouldings, capitals, coats of 
arms. It is also that which is otherwise 
called rustic work, and consists of stones 
which advance beyond the naked or level of 
the building, by reason of indentures or 
channels left in the joinings. 
BOSTANGIS, in the Turkish affairs, per- 
sons employed in. the garden of the seraglio, 
out of whose number are collected those who 
are to row in the grand-signior’s brigan- 
tines. 
BOSTRYCHITES tapis, a name given 
to a stone supposed to contain women’s hair 
included in it. Some have understood by it 
those pieces of crystal which have accidental 
foulnesses in them resembling hair; others 
call by this name those German agates which 
VOL. I. 
I contain either tire conferva; or other capillary 
: water-plants. It is also a name given to a 
species of pyrites, the irradiations of which 
were supposed to imitate hair. 
BOTANY (from Bomm, Greek, an herb or 
plant) formerly implied a knowledge of the 
nature, uses, and cultivation of plants, in 
our accounts of the different genera, we have 
endeavoured to combine these three objects. 
But as a modern science, botany chiefly ap- 
plies to the classification of plants ; or that 
systematic arrangement by which, from ge- 
neral marks or characters, the botanist is 
enabled, first to trace the class, next the 
order, then the genus, and last of all the 
species, to which any plant he meets with 
belongs. 
Various systems have been invented for 
the classification of the vegetable tribes ; but 
that of Linnams, as the simplest and most de- 
cisive, has superseded them all. It is founded 
on the sexual system, or that which supposes 
all plants to have male and female parts of 
generation ; a system which there is every 
reason to believe physiologically true, but 
which in that view will be more properly 
treated of under the article Physiology of 
Plants. 
Sect. I . — Of the parts of plants. 
The principal outlines of a plant are thus 
delineated by Linnauis: 
A plant consists of a root, trunk, leaves, 
props, fructification, and inflorescence, to 
which may be addled the habit. 
I. The root consists of two parts, viz. the 
caudex and the fadicula, distinguished ac- 
cording to shape, direction, duration, Ac. 
1. Caudex, the stump, is the body or knob 
of the root, from which the trunk and 
branches ascend, and the fibrous roots de- 
scend, and in different plants is either solid, 
bulbous, or tuberous. Solid, as in trees, 
shrubs, and many of the herbs. Bulbous is 
explained under Mybernaculum. Tube- 
rous knobs are also solid and hard, contain- 
ing one or more embryos or eyes. They are 
either only one knob, as turnip, carrot, &'c. 
containing only one eve at the top ; or con- 
sist of many knobs connected together by 
slender fibres, as in potatoes, Jerusalem arti- 
chokes, &c. each containing many eyes dis- 
persed over the surface ; and are either pitted, 
when the eyes lie inward, as in potatoes, &c. 
or tuberculated, containing the eyes out- 
ward, as in Jerusalem artichokes, Ac. In 
tuberous knobs, the fibres or stringy parts 
issue from every part of the surface, which is 
an essential difference from bulbous knobs, 
where they are confined to the caudex of the 
bulb only, and are the true and genuine roots, 
the bulb itself being only a large bud under 
ground. Those tuberous knobs with only one 
eye, differ as to duration, but are in general 
biennial ; those with many eves are perennial; 
both seem to be produced by the nutriment 
of the stemlike buds, and not by the fibrous 
roots, for the stem is firstfonned andbecomes 
strong, and as it grows to maturity, the tu- 
berous knobs increase. 
2. Radicula, a little root, is the string or 
fibrous part of the root, descending from the 
caudex: it is really the principal and -essen- 
tial part of every root, and by which the 
nourishment is drawn from the earth for the 
support of the plant, 
II. The trunk rises immediately from the 
Xi 
0*9 
caudex; and produces the leaves, flowers, 
and fruit. It is either herbaceous, shrubby, 
or arborescent ; and is distinguished accord- 
ing to its shape, substance, surface, &c. as 
follows : 
1 . Caulis, a stalk or stem, is the main trunk 
which elevates the leaves and fructification, 
and is applied to trees, shrubs, and herbs. It 
is denominated simple when it does not di- 
vide, and compound when it is divided into 
branches. 
2. Culmus, a straw or haulm, is the proper 
trunk of grasses, and also elevates both the 
leaves and fructification. It is sometimes 
jointed, and sometimes not: it is also some- 
times round and sometimes angular. 
3. Scapus, a stalk, is an herbaceous trunk 
which elevates the fructification, but not the 
leaves ; that is, it is a stalk proceeding im- 
mediately from the root, and terminated by 
the flowers, as in narcissus, hyacinth, Ac. 
4. Stipes, a trunk, used by Linnaeus for the 
trunk of mushrooms, as also for that slender 
thread or footstalk which elevates the feathery 
or hairy down with which some seeds are fur- 
nished, and connects it with the seed. 
III. The leaves are either simple or com- 
pound, and are distinguished by their figure, 
situation, insertion, number, divisions, Ac. 
1 . A simple leaf is such as adheres to the 
branch singly, or whose footstalk is termi- 
nated by a single expansion, not parted 
to the middle rib, and is determined by its 
shape, surface, and divisions. 
2. A compound leaf is such whose foot- 
stalk is furnished with several separate simple 
expansions, or whose divisions extend to the 
middle rib, now called a common petiole or 
footstalk, supporting several lobes or little 
simple leaves, of which the compound leaf 
consists. They are distinguished by shape, 
Ac. and the form by which they are attached 
to the common footstalk, as palmated, wing- 
ed, feathered, Ac. Sometimes leaves are 
twice or more compounded, which divisions 
admit of many modifications, and give rise !• 
as great variety of terms, ft may sometimes 
be difficult, at first sight, to know a common 
footstalk to a compound leaf from a branch ; 
but a common footstalk, where it issues from 
the branch, is either flat or hollow on one 
side, and convex on the other; whereas 
branches are alike on both sides, whether 
round, flat, or angular: again, buds are never 
found at the angles formed by the lobes of a 
compound leaf with the footstalk, but at the 
angles formed by the footstalk of the whole 
compound leaf and the stem ; and it may al- 
ways be certainly distinguished by its falling 
off with the little leaves which it supports. 
The manner or place in which leaves are at- 
tached to the plant, is called the determina- 
tion of leaves, and is distinguished by several 
terms, according to number, disposition, in- 
sertion, figure, Ac. For the different kinds 
of leaves, see Plates I. II. III. Botany. 
IV. The props, fulcra, a term used to ex- 
press those external parts which strengthen, 
support, or defend, the plants on which they 
are found, or serve to facilitate some necessary 
secretion, are as follow : 
1 . Petiolus, the footstalk or support of a 
leaf. 
2. Pedunculus, the footstalk or support of 
a flower. 
3. Stipula, haulm or husk, a sort of scale 
or small leaf stationed on most plants, (whea 
