The VEGETABLE SYSTEM. 83 
yard high, and branches into a multitude of fpreading twigs ; thefe 
are of a pale green. The Leaves are very handfomely cut ; and what 
forms the trifid end of them, is no more than the two extream fide 
Segments, growing to that at the end. Their colour is a pale yellowifli 
green, faint but not difagreeable. The Flowers are blue, but it is 
not a fine or pleafing colour j and fometimes they become of ther 
mere colour of the Leaves, a yellowifh green. They blow from June 
to September. 
This is the Plant whofe Roots are celebrated in medicine, and they 
deferve all the praife that has been given them. They are excellent 
in all diforders arifing from obdrudtion : I have feen the jaundice cured 
by them alone ; and in the gravel they are fafe and excellent ; as alfo 
againd afthma’s, and other diforders of the bread and lungs ; but they 
trifle who eat them candy ’d for this purpofe ; the virtue is lod in the 
preparation. 
It has been a cuflom to range the Eryngium among the Umbellife- 
rous Plants. Our reafon for placing it among the Aggregates, needs no 
other authority than the view of the Head, or the comparifon of its Fi- 
gure here, with thofe of Scabious and Dipfacus, the avowed Heads of 
the Aggregate Clafs. 
2. FOLDED ERYNGO. 
Plate 49. Fig. 1. sea holly, 
Chara&er of the Species. Eryngium maritimum. 
The Leaves are wav’d, and thorny at the edges ; the lower 
ones are roundifh, and elegantly plaited in regular folds. 
Fig. 1 . a b. 
This is a perennial, native of our fea coafls in mod parts of the 
iflandj and like the preceding kind, common alfo to almod every part 
of Europe. It is a robud Plant, of a foot and a half high ; and flowers 
in June. The Stalk is round, thick* firm, and hard. It is reddifh to- 
ward the bafe, but of a blueifh green upwards j the Leaves alfo are of 
a blueifh green, but with blackifh thorns * and they are thick and flefhy. 
The Flowers are of a pale blue, not much differing from the colour of 
the red of the Plant, but more bright and fhining. 
L 2 
The 
