NATURAL HISTORY. 
281 
thin crufty (hell, of a brown or blackifh co- 
lour. In thefe are found the cotton. In 
fome of the American plantations there are 
cotton bufhes very like thofe of Egypt, Ara- 
bia, &c. 
MANDRAKE PLANT. 
HIS plant is of two fpecies ; one Is the 
X common, and has a round fruit called 
male mandrake ; the othet has a purple flow- 
er, and is called the female mandrake. The 
leaves of the former rife immediately from 
the root, and are about a foot long, and 
broader than a man’s hand, of a fmooth fur- 
face, a deep green colour, and of a difa- 
greeable fmell. The flowers of both are 
fhaped like a bell, which leave a loft globu- 
lar fruit containing many feeds, fhaped like a 
kidney. The root, according to fome na- 
turalifls, reprefents the lower parts of a 
man, and is therefore called anthropomor- 
pha, which in Greek, fignifies the figure 
of a man. But this feigned refemblance of 
the human form is only devifed by the cun- 
ning of quacks and impoftors, who deceive 
the ignorant by forming the frefli roots of 
briony and other plants into thefe refem- 
blances. There is likewife another ridiculous 
l;-'ole devifed refpefting this plant ; which i^ 
that as it is certain death to thofe who root it 
A a 2 
from 
