64 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
is still occasionally employed as a culinary herb. Many valuable properties were 
attributed to it iu bygone times ; and even in late years some faith has been placed 
in its curative powers in epilepsy and convulsions. Dr. Withering tells us of a 
patient who was cured of hysteric fits of many years' duration by a dram of the 
leaves being administered four times a day. Gerarde writes : " Pliny saith that the 
traveller or wayfaring man that hath the herbe tied about him feeleth no wearisom- 
nesse at all ; and that he who hath it about him can be hurt by no poysonsome 
medicines nor by any wilde beast, neither yet by the sun itself; and also that it is 
drunke againste ojiium or the juyce of blacke poppy. Many other fantasticale devices 
invented by Poets are to be seene in the works of the antient writers tending to 
witchcraft and sorcerie, and the great dishonour of God ; wherefore I do of purpose 
omit them as things unworthy of my record iDg to your reviewing." We fear that a 
similar commentary might be appended to the chief part of the earlier editions of 
good old Gerarde's own herbal. Sheep are said to be very fond of the herbage of 
mugwort, and also of the roots. It may, perhaps, be the Artemisia of Poutus, which 
was celebrated among the ancients for fattening these animals. Pliny states that the 
sheep of Pontus became very fat, and wei'e always without gall after eating this 
plant, — a circumstauce highly improbable and not to be accepted. 
Section III.— OLIGOSPORUS. Cass. 
Anthodes heterogamous, central florets with the ovary abortive, 
those of the circumference female. Clinanth glabrous. 
SPECIES III— ARTEMISIA CAMPESTRIS. Linn. 
Plate DCCXXXIII. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XVI. Tab. MXXXV. 
Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1007 (bis). 
Stem herbaceous, somewhat woody at the base, procumbent 
before flowering, at length ascending, paniculately branched, with 
the branches ascending. Leaves not punctate, at first pubescent, at 
length glabrous ; the lower ones stalked, pinnate or bipinnate, with 
the ultimate segments linear, blunt, apiculate. Anthodes very 
numerous, few-flowered, erect, very shortly stalked, in elongate 
spikelike racemes arranged in a leafy panicle witli elongate ascend- 
ing branches. Periclinc oblong-ovoid ; phyllaries all glabrous, 
scarious at the tips, the outer ones much shorter. Female florets 
filiform, with an enlarged base. Clinanth glabrous. 
On dry open sandy heaths, on the confines of Norfolk and 
Suffolk, as about Brandon, and near Thetford and Bury St. 
ildmunds, also near Belfast, but introduced. 
England, [Ireland]. Perennial. Autumn. 
Rootstock woody, producing tufts of short leafy barren shoots, 
