ERYTHRiEA CENTAURIUM.-COMMON CENTAURY. 
Class Y. PENTANDRTA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, GENTIANEJL THE GENTIAN TRIBE. 
This elegant annual grows spontaneously in most parts of Britain, in dry gravelly pastures, and in woods ; 
flowering in July and August. Dr. Milne found it in great abundance in Charlton Wood, near the seven 
mile-stone, on the lower road to Woolwich; in the meadows about Eltham and Sidcup; in Shooter's Hill 
Wood; and in the chalk-pits at Northfleet. We also observed it plentifully in Birch Wood, Kent. A 
white variety was gathered by Mr. Lawson, near the medicinal well at Cartmel, in Lancashire; and is 
affirmed by the editor of the third edition of Ray’s Synopsis, to be pretty common in Kent and in the Isle 
of Sheppey. It occurs generally throughout Europe, as far northward as Sweden. 
The plant rises from a small woody, fibrous root, to the height of ten or twelve inches. The stem is 
slender, erect, angular, leafy, sometimes branched at the upper part, and when very luxuriant, from the 
base also. The leaves grow close to the stalk, in pairs, tending upwards, and are pointed, ovate, or elliptic- 
lanceolate. Those next the root are numerous, obovate, and form a tuft near the ground : they are all 
smooth, ribbed like those of plantain or soap-wort, and of a bright green colour. The flowers, which open 
in the day-time and shut at night, are disposed in a beautiful more or less dense panicle, at the extremity 
of the forked branches. They have a smooth striated, 5-cleft calyx, about half the length of the tube of the 
corolla, whose limb is of a brilliant pink or rose-colour, rarely white, and divided into five elliptical spread- 
ing segments, succeeded by an oblong cylindrical capsule, that opens by two valves, disclosing a number of 
small seeds. The filaments are thread-shaped, and furnished with oblong, yellow anthers, which become 
spiral or threetimes twisted, after bursting, as represented by fig. a , on the plate. The germen is oblong, 
bearing a straight style, with a roundish bifid stigma. 
The genus Erythraea, so named from the red colour of most of the flowers, contains four British species. 
It differs from Chironia, (which was originally appropriated to an African genus,) in habit, in the long tube 
and short limb of the corolla, and in other less important characters. The term Centaurium was bestowed 
on this species in honour of Chiron the Centaur, the celebrated preceptor of Achilles, who by the testi- 
mony of Pliny, (1. xxv. c. 6,) cured with it Hercules’s foot, which had been wounded with a poisoned arrow. 
Qualities. The flowering tops are principally used in medicine; they are intensely bitter, without 
any peculiar smell. Their active powers are extracted both by water and alcohol. The decoction with 
water affords, by inspissation, a bitter extract. 
Medical Properties and Uses. Common, or Lesser Centaury, as it is sometimes called, has 
long been celebrated for its medicinal virtues, and is justly esteemed as one of the most efficacious of our 
indigenous bitters. It is a useful stomachic and antiseptic, and before the discovery of cinchona, was much 
employed as a useful tonic, in the cure of intermittent and continued fevers. As a bitter, it may be given 
with advantage in dyspeptic complaints, and in all cases where that class of remedies is indicated. The 
tops enter as an ingredient into the Portland powder ; once in the highest repute as a remedy against the 
gout, but now very properly discarded from medical practice. The extract agrees in its medical properties 
with that of gentian, and being less expensive, is perhaps preferable. The dose of the powder is from 3 fs 
to 3j; of the extract gr. v. to Bj ; of an infusion, made by macerating lij of the dried tops in lb. fs. of 
boiling water, l ij may be taken three or four times a day. 
The following extract is from the British Naturalist. “The charm of a summer’s morning is in the 
upland, and the extensive view; they who have never beheld the rising sun from a mountain top, know 
not how fair the world is. Early though it be, there is a sentinel upon the heath ; a shrill whistle comes 
sharp and clear upon the morning breeze, which makes all the echoes of the west answer. But be not 
alarmed, there is no danger ; no guerilla, not even a solitary robber, upon the British uplands ; and the 
eagle and the raven are yet in the rocks, and reynard just leaving his earth in the coppice below. That 
whistle is his reveille, to warn those birds that nestle among the grass in the heath, that the enemy is 
coming abroad. It is the note of the plover. 
The place to be chosen for a view of sun-rise on a summer morning is not the centre of a mountain 
ridge — the chine of the wilderness ; but some elevation near the sea coast, — the eastern coast, where, from 
