AN AG ALLIS AR VEN SIS.-SC ARLET PIMPERNEL. 
Class V. PENTANDRIA. Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, ROTACEiE. 
Fig. (<z) exhibits a single stamen; ( h ) the calyx, germen, and pistil ; (c ) the fruit. 
This is a low, annual plant, with elegant scarlet flowers, and a procumbent stem ; resembling common 
chickweed. It is indigenous to Britain ; growing plentifully in cultivated grounds, particularly in rich 
garden soils ; and flowering nearly the whole summer. 
Pimpernel has a small fibrous root. The stem is square, much branched, smooth, slender, and clothed 
with small ovate, shining green leaves, which are either placed opposite in pairs, without foot-stalks, or four 
together, and marked with purplish spots underneath. The flower-stalks are angular, opposite, one flowered, 
bending downwards after flowering. The calyx is five-parted, acute, keeled, and permanent. The corolla 
is bright scarlet, violet coloured at the mouth, syn-or-gamo-petalous, wheel-shaped, and divided into five 
ovate segments, the margins of which are slightly notched, or beset with minute glands. The stamens are 
five, purple, hairy, and supporting yellow heart-shaped anthers. The germen is globular ; the style purple, 
filiform, with a capitate stigma. The pyxidium is spherical, about the size of a pea, opening horizontally, 
and containing several small, brown, angular, roughish seeds. 
The name Anagallis, retained from the old Greek and Roman authors, is by some, supposed to be de- 
duced from the verb vayeXau, to smile, because the plant is conspicuous for the beauty of its flowers; others 
believe it to refer to the former reputed properties of the plant, which is extolled both by Dioscorides and 
Pliny, for removing obstructions of the liver, which they considered the cause of low-spirits and despondency. 
The flowers expand only about the middle of the day, and close at the approach of rain ; and from this cir- 
cumstance it is denominated the shepherd’s, or poor man’s iveather glass. 
It likewise forms one of the Florae horologicae, opening its flowers regularly, about eight minutes past 
seven in our latitude, and closing them about three minutes past two in the afternoon. — (Loudon.) 
Properties and Uses. — Pimpernel formerly held a place in our pharmacopoeias, and was considered 
to be detergent, vulnerary, and cephalic ; and by the ancients it has been extolled for its virtues in gout, 
gravel, convulsions, and the plague. Gelin and others have asserted its success in hydrophobia ; and had 
subsequent experience confirmed its powers in this disease, we should view it not merely as a pretty flower, 
but as one of the most useful in the vegetable kingdom. It is not now employed, but the following account 
from Orfila, will prove its poisonous effects. 
“At eight in the morning, three drachms of the extract of Pimpernel, dissolved in an ounce and a half 
of water, were introduced into the stomach of a robust dog. At half-past twelve he had a motion. At six 
in the evening he was dejected. At eleven, sensibility appeared diminished. The next morning at six, he 
was lying upon the side, and appeared to be dead : he might be displaced like an inert mass of matter. He 
expired half an hour after. The mucous membrane of the stomach was slightly inflamed : the interior of 
the rectum was of a bright colour ; the ventricles of the heart were distended with black coagulated blood ; 
the lungs presented several livid spots, and their texture was preternaturally dense. Two drachms of the 
same extract, applied to the cellular texture of a dog’s thigh, produced death in twelve hours : and the 
heart and lungs presented the same appearance as in the other. 
Birds of the passerine kind, are said to feed on the seeds with avidity. 
The term 1 marsh ’ naturally suggests to the mind the image of a greenish lake, shallow, miry, and ill- 
odorous, enamelled with water-lilies and waving rushes, and swarming with frogs in the summer, and with 
snipes in winter. This, however is not a description of the locality called the Marsh, in, the environs of 
Paris ; it was doubtless at a former period, the receptacle of seasonal inundations, which, having no outlet, 
gave it the character from whence it derived its present name ; it has long however, been drained and culti- 
vated, and transformed into a vegetable garden. 
Destined solely for the culture of edible plants and roots, these marshes or market-gardens, surround 
the capital on every side, both within and without the enclosure of the walls. By whatever barrier you leave 
the city,— whether you follow the dusty route of the castle of Vincennes, or the imposing avenue of Neuilly 
— -whether you visit the funeral shades of Pere-la-Chaise, or the sandy plain of Grenelle — the scene that 
everywhere meets the eye, is a series of interminable parallelograms, planted with salads, spinage, carrots, 
cabbages, horse-radish, and harricot-beans. Not an inch of land is wasted in these inclosures. The path- 
ways running between the squares, are scarcely wide enough to afford a passage to a single pedestrian ; the 
glazed sashes which cover the melons, sparkle in the sun like plates of silver. The neatness which reigns 
in these plots of ground, the vigour of the vegetation, the exquisite condition of every little bed and border 
— all announces that the art of cultivation is there carried to the highest point of developement. 
In a corner of the enclosure, rises some few feet above the soil, a cabin covered with thatch. Judging 
by the taste which presided at the erection of such a habitation, by its ruinous condition, but ill-concealed 
