846 ILL 
ILLIE'ERALLY, adv. [from illiberal.] Difingenuoufly; 
meanly.—One that had been bountiful only upon furprize 
and incogitancy, illiberally retra'cfs. Decay of Piety. 
ILLIB'ERIS, a town of Gaul, through which Hanni¬ 
bal paffed, as he marched into Italy. 
IL'LIC, a town of Alia, in the country of Thibet: 
feven miles north-weft of Tocfon-Hotun. 
ILLIC'IT, adj. [illiciius, Lat. illicite, Fr.] Unlawful; 
as, an illicit trade. 
ILLI'CIUM, f ( al i/liciendo-, an incitement or allure¬ 
ment; an inticing plant.) Aniseed-tree; in botany, a 
genus of the clals polyandria, order polygynia, natural 
order of coadunatte, (magnolias, JuJJ.) The generic cha- 
ra&ers are—Calyx : perianthium lix-leaved, deciduous, the 
three inferior leaflets oval; the three fuperior alternate 
ones narrower, and refembling petals. Corolla : petals 
many (twenty-feven), difpofed in a triple feries; the nine 
inferior obtufe, concave, the nine middle fliorter and 
narrower; the interior nine dill Ihorter and narrower. 
Stamina: filaments very many (thirty), ftiort, deprefled ; 
antherse upright, oblong, obtufe, emarginate. Piftillum : 
germs very many (twenty), difpofed in a circle, ending in 
very ftiort fpreading ityles; ftigmas at the upper fide of 
the ftyle, oblong. Pericarpium : caplules leveral, (com¬ 
monly eight, Lour.) ovate, comprefled, hard, fpreading into 
a circle, bivalve; (one-valved. Lour, opening at the upper 
edge, Gartner.) Seed -. folitary, ovate, rather comprefled, 
glofly.— EJJential Character. Calyx fix-leaved ; petals twen¬ 
ty-feven. Caplule leveral, dilpofed in a circle, bivalve, 
one-feeded. 
Species, i. Illicium anifatum, or yellow-flowered ftarry 
anifeed-tree : flowers yellow ; petals fixteen, caplules fix 
or eight. Stem arboreous, a fathom or more in height, 
fmooth all over. Branches trichotomous, wrinkled and 
angular, from fpreading upright. Leaves aggregate, in 
threes or fours, elliptic, broader near the tip, acuminate, 
quite entire, evergreen, paler underneath, often reflex, 
two inches long. Petiole very Ihort, channelled, gradu¬ 
ally widening into the leaf. Flowers axillary, peduncled, 
folitary. Germs eight or more. Capfules fix or eight, 
ovate-lanceolate, comprefled a little, horizontal, of a fub- 
ftance like cork, rugged without, fmooth and even within, 
having a ltrong fmell of anife when rubbed. Seeds ellip¬ 
tic, fubtruncated in front, lens-ftiaped, extremely fmooth 
and even, glofly, rufous, or cinnamon-coloured. 
We meet with an account of the ftarry anifeed, toge¬ 
ther with a figure of it, taken from Clufius, in Parkinfon’s 
Theatre of Plants, p. 1569, where he obferves, that fome 
branches of it, with the hulks and feeds only, without 
leaves or blofloms, were brought into England by fir 
Thomas Cavendilh, in queen Elizabeth’s time, from the 
Philippine iflands, where he met with it in his voyage 
round the world. Thefe branches were given to Mr. 
Morgan, the queen's apothecary, and to Mr. James Gar- 
rat, of whom Clufius received them. Monfieur Geoffroy, 
in his Materia Medica, tranflated in 1736 by Dr. G. 
Douglas, p. 312, calls it Anifum Sincnfe, femen badian & 
fruLlus Jlcllatus, and fays, it is highly efteemed in China, 
ptid all over the eaft 5 that it is ul'ed to cure any bad tafte 
in the mouth, as a prefervative againft the effefts of bad 
air, and alfo for the ftone and gravel ; that the Indians 
likewife fteep this fruit in water, and afterwards ferment 
the infufion, and thus make a vinous liquor : that the 
Dutch in the ,Eaft Indies, as well as the natives, mix this 
fruit with their tea and fherbet. Kaempfer, in his Amoe- 
tates Exoticce, p. 88q, calls itfomoorJliimmi, and has given 
a very good figure of a branch of it, with the leaves, 
flowers, and fruit. He found it in Japan, and fays that 
the Japanefe and Chinefe efteern it a facred tree, that they 
offer it to their idols, and burn the bark of it, as a per¬ 
fume, on their altars ; and lay the branches upon the 
graves of the dead, as an offering to the ghofts of their 
pious departed friends ; and that the public watchmen ufe 
the powder of this aromatic bark ltrewed in fmall wind- 
big grooves, or little channels, on fome .allies in a box 
I L L 
fecured from the weather, for the following pnrpofe 
This powder, being lighted at one end, burns flowly on, 
and being come to certain marked diltances, and l'o fpark- 
ling through the grooves, they ftrike a bell, and, by means 
of this time-keeper, proclaim the hours of the night to 
the public. And laftly, that it has the remarkable pro¬ 
perty of rendering the poilon of the bladder-filh (Tetrodon 
liilpidus of Linn. Syft. Nat.) more virulent, as many 
have experienced, that have ufed violent means to deftroy 
themfelves. Native of China and Japan. Thunberg 
doubts whether this and the ftoridanum be really diftind: 
Ipecies, or only varieties. 
a. Illicium Floridanum, or red-flowered ftarry anifeed- 
tree: flowers red; petals ai-27, capfules 12 or more. 
We are indebted for the firft difeovery of this curious 
American tree to a negro fervant of William Clifton, efq. 
chief juftice of Weft Florida, who was lent to colled fpeci- 
mens of all the rarer plants by his mafter, in April, 1765.. 
After this, in the latter end of January, 1766, Mr. John. 
Bartram, the king’s botanift for the Floridas, difcovered 
it on the banks of the river St. John, in Eaft Florida, as 
appears from his defeription of it, and the drawing of a 
feed-veilel, with fome of the leaves, which he lent to Pe¬ 
ter Collinfon, efq. Mr. Bartram’s defeription of it is as 
follows : “ Near here my fon found a lovely fweet tree, 
with leaves like the fweet bay, which fmelled like fafla- 
fras, and produces a very ftrange kind of feed-pod ; but 
all the feed was ihed ; the fevere froft had not hin t it ; fome 
of them grew near twenty feet high ; a charming bright 
ever-green aromatic.” The medicinal properties of this- 
tree are worth enquiring into. The leaves afford a molt 
agreeable bitter. A fprig of it fet to putrify in a phial of 
water, the bark foon became full of a clear mucilage. 
The young blofloms, put into W'ater with a fmall quan¬ 
tity of tartar per deliquium, from a dark-reddifli colour be¬ 
came a light-brown ; but, from the fame proportion of 
oil of vitriol in water, they turned to a fine carmine co¬ 
lour, which ftained the paper of a fine red. This points 
out its aftringent -quality. Many perfons think this 
plant not really a different fpecies from the oriental one. 
The feed-veffels from China, however, fmell very difa- 
greeably of anileed : whereas the feed-veffel of the Flori¬ 
danum is agreeably aromatic, as are the leaves and young 
branches. The flower, according to Ktempfer, is of a 
yellowifh white, and looks at a diltance like a narciffus : 
the prefent fpecies has a flower of a dark-red colour. 
Ksempfer reckons the number of petals fixteen, and the 
rays or feed-veffels eight; the number of petals in this is 
from twenty-one to twenty-feven, and the leed-veffels 
twelve or thirteen that ripen. Indeed the generic cha¬ 
racters, as they appear at the head of the article, leem to 
have been formed upon a view of this fpecies, which is 
that reprefented in the annexed Engraving. 
Propagation and Culture. The anifeed-tree may be pro¬ 
pagated by feeds, if they can be procured ; or by laying 
down the young branches ; or by cuttings, which ftrike 
freely. It requires the fame treatment as Gardenia, 
which fee, vol. viii. p. 25.3. 
ILTIERS, a town of France, in the department of the 
Eure and Loire, and chief place of a canton, in the dif- 
trift of Chartres : four leagues fouth-eait of Chartres, and 
five north-north-weft of Chateaudun. 
To ILLIGH'TEN, v.n. [in and lighten.) To enlighten; 
to illuminate.—Corporeal light cannot be, becaufe then it 
would not pierce the air, nor diaphanous bodies; and yet 
every day we fee the air i/lightened. Raleigh. 
ILLIMITABLE, adj. [in and limes, Lat.] That which 
cannot be bounded or limited.—Although, in adoration 
of idols, unto the fubtiler heads the worihip perhaps 
mistht be fymbolical ; yet was the idolatry direft in the 
people, whole credulity is illimitable, and who may be made 
to believe that any thing is God. Broun . 
With what an awful world-revolving power, 
Were firft th’ unwieldly planets launch’d along 
[The illimitable void! Thomfbn. 
ILLIMTTABLY, 
