t 
A S I 
worts are either shrubs or tall upright peren- 
nial herbaceous plants, milky and poisonous, 
or at least acrid. The flowers are borne 
on solitary peduncles, several together 
in umbels, and surrounded with a many- 
leaved involucre. They are very singular 
in their structure. Flies in searching for the 
honey in the nectary are frequently caught 
by the legs, and are not able to extricate 
themselves. A. syriaca is a native of North 
America, where the tender shoots are eaten 
as we eat asparagus. The dowers are so 
odoriferous as to make it very agreeable to 
travel in the woods, especially in the even- 
ing. They make a sugar of them in Canada, 
gathering them in the morning, when they 
are covered with dew. Poor people collect 
the cotton from the pods, and fill their beds 
with it. 
ASCOBOLUS, a genus of the Cryptoga- 
mia Fungi. Fungus semi-splierical, con- 
taining oblong vesicles, somewhat immersed 
in its disk, which eject the seeds with an 
elastic force. 
ASCOPHORA, a genus of the Crypto- 
gamia Fungi. Fungus erect, on a setaceous 
stalk ; head globular-oblong ; inflated, opake, 
elastic, bearing the seeds externally. There 
are seven species, and two divisions. A. 
clustered on a common receptacle. B. de- 
tached. 
ASCYRUM, in botany, a genus of plants 
with a rosaceous flower, and an oblong cap- 
sular fruit, formed of two valves, and con- 
taining a number of small, roundish seeds. 
It belongs to the Polyadelphia Polyandria 
class of Linnaeus, and is so nearly allied to 
the Hypericum, that Tournefort makes it 
the same genus ; from which, however, it is 
distinguished by having only four petals, 
whereas the hypericum has five. 
ASH, in botany. See Fraxinus. 
ASILUS, in natural history, a genus of 
insects of the order Diptera. Essential cha- 
racter: mouth with a straight, homy, bivalve 
snout. The most common European species 
of asilus is the A. crabroniformis, a mode- 
rately large insect, nearly equalling a hornet 
in length, but of a much more slender and 
sharpened form: the head and thorax are 
of a ferruginous colour : the eyes black : the 
upper half of the abdomen velvet black ; 
the lower half bright orange colour; the 
whole having a bright silky or downy sur- 
face: the wings are a dull yellow brown, 
and marked on their inner edge by several 
dusky triangular dashes of spots. Though 
of a somewhat formidable aspect, this insect 
is incapable of piercing with any degree of 
ASP 
severity. It preys on the smaller kind of 
insects, and proceeds from a smooth, white, 
subterraneous larva, of lengthened shape, 
and destitute of legs : the pupa resembles 
that of the tipula. There are several other 
species. 
ASPALATHUS, aspalath, in botany, a 
genus of the Diadelphia Decandria class of 
plants, the calyx of which consists of a single- 
leafed perianthium, divided into five seg- 
ments: the corolla is papilionaceous; the 
fruit is a roundish, turgid, unilocular, bivalve 
pod ; the seed is single, and frequently kid- 
ney-shaped. According to Martyn there 
are 37 species ; but Gmelin has enumerated 
nearly double that number. The plants of 
this genus, with few exceptions, are natives 
of the Cape of Good Hope. They are 
shrubby, or at least under-shrubs. The 
leaves are simple : the flowers mostly yel- 
low. They may be propagated here by 
seeds brought from the Cape. 
ASPARAGIN, a name given to a lately 
discovered juice of asparagus, which was 
discovered by expression and evaporation. 
Various crystals gradually make their ap- 
pearance, and among others crystals of as- 
paragin easily separated from the rest on 
account of their colour and figure. The 
crystals are white and transparent, and have 
the figure of rhomboid al prisms : it is hard 
and brittle, and its taste is cool and slightly 
nauseous, so as to occasion a secretion of 
saliva. It dissolves in hot water, but not in 
alcohol. The aqueous solution does not af- 
fect vegetable blues. Neither infusion of 
galls, acetate of lead, oxalate of ammonia, 
muriate ofbarytes, nor the hydro-sulpliurat, 
occasion any change in it. When triturated 
with potash no ammonia is disengaged. 
When heated it smells, and emits penetrat- 
ing vapours, affecting the eyes and nose like 
the smoke of wood. Nitric acid dissolves 
it with the evolution of nitrous gas. These 
properties distinguish it from all other vege- 
table substances. 
ASPARAGUS, in botany. Class, Ilex- 
andria Monogynia. Gen, char. cal. none ; 
cor. petals, six, cohering by the claws, ob- 
long, erected into a tube, three alternately 
interior, permanent; stam. filaments six, 
filiform, inserted into the petals, erect, 
shorter than the corolla ; anthers roundish ; 
pist. germ, turbinate, three-cornered ; style 
very short ; stigma a prominent point ; per- 
berry globular, umbilicated with a point, 
three-celled ; seeds two, round, angular on 
the inside, smooth. 
Asparagus, in gardening, comprehends 
