EPILOBIUM ANGUSTISSIUM .-NARROWEST-LEAVED WILLOW-HERB. 
Class VIII. OCTANDRIA. Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, ONAGRARIA.- THE EVENING PRIMROSE TRIBE. 
Root creeping; stems erect, nearly simple; leaves nearly sessile, lanceolate, undulated, glabrous, with the veins 
pellucid; flowers disposed in spicate racemes, hracteolate, style reflexed, pelose at the base, shorter than the 
stamens. Natives of Europe and Siberia, in mountain woods and meadows. In Britain in moist shady 
places, particularly in the north of England and south of Scotland. It flowers in July and August. 
The Onagracece are all innocuous plants, but they are more celebrated for their beauty than for their 
medical or economical importance. Many of them, such as the Fuchsia, Epitobium, Gaura, Clarckia, and 
Lopezia, are highly ornamental plants. Montinia acris , which is remarkable for having albuminous seeds, 
likewise deviates from the other genera in having an acrid fruit. Of the Epilobia or willow herbs, the E. or 
Chamcenerion angustifolium is said to produce a kind of intoxication, or to stupify those who drink a de- 
coction of its stems and leaves ; and hence perhaps the reason why it is added by the Kamtschatdales to 
“enrich the spirit” they prepare from the cow-parsnip. The pith when dried becomes sweet, and the same 
people brew from it a kind of ale, and also procure their vinegar. The young shoots of this and other 
species are eatable when dressed in the same manner as asparagus. The Epilobia are valuable plants for 
shrubberies, as they will thrive under the drip of trees, and by their brilliant flowers enliven and form an 
admirable contrast with the more sombre foliage of shady walks. They are also very tolerant of smoke, and 
thrive well in large towns. The roots of the (Enothera , especially (E. biennis, are also esculent. The plant 
was once cultivated for the sake of its tubers, which might in some measure have stood in the stead of the 
potato, had they not been superseded by the introduction of the latter most valuable plant. The roots of 
this (Enothera were formerly eaten after dinner, as olives now are, being esteemed incentives to wine- 
drinking; and hence the generic name was changed from Onagra, the ass-food, to Enothera, the wine-trap. 
The leaves of Jussiea Peruviana are esteemed in America for making good emollient poultices. 
A delightful writer says, “Among other comparative injuries which we are accustomed to do to the 
characters of things animate and inanimate, in order to gratify our human vanity, — is a habit in which 
some persons indulge themselves of calling insipid things and persons sticks. Such and such a one is said 
to write a stick ; and such another is himself called a stick ; — a poor stick, a mere stick, a stick of a fellow. 
We protest against this injustice done to those genteel, jaunty, useful, and flourishing sons of a good 
old stock. Take, for instance, a common cherry stick, which is one of the favourite sort. In the first place 
it is a very pleasant substance to look at, the grain running round it in glossy and shadowy rings. Then it is 
of primaeval origin, handed down from scion to scion through the most flourishing of genealogical trees. In 
the third place, it is of Eastern origin; of a stock, which it is possible may have furnished Haroun A1 Raschid 
with a djereed, or Mahomet with a camels-stick, or Xenophon in his famous retreat with fences, or Xerxes 
with .tentpins, or Alexander with a javelin, or Sardanapalus with tarts, or Zoroaster with mathematical in- 
struments. Lastly, how do you know but that you may have eaten cherries off this very stick ; for it was once 
with sap, alive and rustling with foliage, and powdered with blossoms, and red and laughing with fruit. Where 
the leathern tassel now hangs, may have dangled a bunch of berries; and instead of the brass ferrule poking in 
the mud, the tip was growing into the air with its youngest green. 
The use of sticks in general is of the very greatest antiquity. It is impossible to conceive a state of society, 
in which boughs should not be plucked from trees for some purpose of utility or amusement. Savages use 
clubs, hunters require lances, and shepherds their crooks. Then came the sceptre, which is originally 
nothing but a staff, or a lance, or a crook, distinguished from others. The Greek word for sceptre signifies 
also a walking-stick. A mace, however plumped up and disguised with gilding and a heavy crown, is only 
the same thing in the hands of an inferior ruler; and so are all other sticks used in office, from the baton of 
the Grand Constable of France down to the tipstaff of a constable in Bow street. As the shepherd’s dog is 
the origin of the gentlest pet that lies on a hearth-cushion and of the most pompous barker that jumps 
about a pair of greys, so the merest stick used by a modern Arcadian, when he his driving his flock to 
