LEM 
of moff parts of Europe, in ditches, ponds, See. flowering 
in July and Auguit. 
5. Lemna ohcordata, or obcordate duck’s meat: leaves 
fefiile obcordate, roots cluftered. Leaves very fmallj the 
upper furface in front bright green, but the hinder part, 
with the lower furface, and roots, purple; they have a 
longitudinal groove running along the middle, which is 
forked in front, each branch running to the end of each 
lobe, and dividing them as it were in two. Native of the 
Eaft Indies. 
6. Lemna arhiza, or rootlefs duck’s meat : leaves in 
pairs, rootlefs. This has commonly two leaves cohering 
together, one fmaller than the other, and no roots. This 
latter circumlfance makes it very probable that it is only 
Lemna polyrhiza in a nafeent ftate, as Wiggers has ob- 
ferved. Native of Italy and France. 
Thefe plants are all annual, and float on ftagnant wa¬ 
ter. Their flowers were obferved in Italy long lince by 
Micheli and Vallifnieri; but, not being produced fo freely 
in more northern climates, they were long thought by 
feme to be cryptogamous plants. The fructification, 
however, has been well afeertained by Ehrhart and Gra- 
ner in L. gibba, by Linnaeus in L. minor, and by Graner 
in L. polyrhiza. Dr. Withering, alfo, having examined 
fome of them in a flowering ftate, bears witnel's to the ac¬ 
curacy of Micheii’s figures. See Marsilea. 
LEM'NIAN, adj. Belonging to Lemnos, imported 
from Lemnos. 
LEM'NIAN, f. A native or inhabitant of Lemnos. 
LEM'NIS, in ancient geography, an iiland of Africa, 
in Mauritania Csefarienfis, eaft-north-eaft of the mouth of 
the river Malva. 
LEMNIS'CIA,/. Gr. a fillet, ribband, 01- 
bandage ; from the form of the petals.] In botany, a ge¬ 
nus of the clafs polyandria, order monogynia. The ge¬ 
neric characters are—Calyx: perianthium one-leafed, five¬ 
toothed, acute, fliort. Corolla : petals five, linear, long, 
acute, recurved, growing to the nettary. Neftary cup-fhap- 
ed; flefhy, very lliort, girding the germ. Stamina: filaments 
numerous (feventy to eighty), capillary, longer than the 
corolla, inferted into the neCtary ; antherae roundifii, fmall. 
Piftillum : germ roundilh, immerfed into the nectary ; 
Ityle filiform, length of the ftamens; ltigma obtufe. Pe- 
ricarpium : five-celled. Seeds folitary.— EJJential CharaEler. 
Calyx five-toothed; corolla five-petalled, recurved; nec¬ 
tary cup-lhaped, girding the germ; pericarpium five- 
celled; feeds folitary. 
Lemnifcia Guianenfis, a fingle fpecies, the Vantanea 
Guianenfis of Aublet. This is a tree from fifteen to 
twenty feet in height, and a foot in diameter. The bark 
is brown and fmooth ; the wood white and compact; 
abundance of twitted branches fpread in every direction. 
Leaves alternate, fmooth, firm entire, ovate, acuminate, 
on a fliort petiole ; the largelt leaves are five inches in 
length, and two in breadth. Flowers at the ends of the 
fiioots, very numerous, in large corymbs, on a woody pe¬ 
duncle; corolla of a fine coral red. Native of Guiana, 
where it is called Jouantan, whence, Aublet has conftrufted 
its name. It flowers in Auguit. 
LEM'NITZ, a river of Saxony, which runs into the 
Saal five miles fouth-ealt of Saalburg. 
LEM'NITZ, a town of Saxony, in Neulladt: three 
miles eaft of Neuftadt. 
LEM'NIUS, a furname of Vulcan. 
LEM'NIUS, or Lemmens (Levinus), was born at Zi- 
rickfee, in Zealand, in May 1505. He ftudied at Lou¬ 
vain, and by the advice of his friends applied both to 
medicine and theology. He principally diftinguifhed 
liimfelf, however, in the former of thefe fciences, and 
praftifed the profeflion for upwards of forty years, chiefly 
in his native place, where lie fettled in 1527. He ob¬ 
tained the full confidence of his patients by his know¬ 
ledge and eloquence, and efpecially by a mild and humane 
expreflion of countenance and manner, which never failed 
3 
LEM 471 
to intereft the lick. After the death of his wife, Lem- 
nius became a prieft, and was made a canon of the churojj 
of St. Lieven, at Zirickfee, where he died in July 1568. 
He was the author of feveral works, the ftyle of which 
has fome force, and even elegance. Thefe are: 1. De 
Aftrologia, De termino vitae; De honefto animi et corpo¬ 
ris obleftamento; Antwerp, 1554.. 2. Ds occultis naturae 
miraculis, 1559. 3. De occultis naturae miraculis, 1564. 
Thefe works contain many obiervations relative to natu¬ 
ral philofophy, botany, phyfiology, and medicine, and ef¬ 
pecially concerning generation and monfters; but,they 
alfo contain many fables. One Ifrange remark of his has 
been quoted from the laft of thefe works, to which an 
Englilhman will hardly give his aflfent; namely, “that 
failors, and the inhabitants of maritime regions, are 
prompted to many crimes, and are of a ferocious temper, 
becaufe the fait humour, which prefides in them, obnu¬ 
bilates the intellect, and prompts them to injury.” 4. De 
Habitu et Conftitutione Corporis, quam triviales Complexi- 
onem vocant, 1566, and feveral lubfequent editions. 5. 
Similitudinum et Parabolarum, quas in Bibliis ex herbis 
atque arboribus defumuntur dilucida explicatio, 1569; 
many times reprinted and tranllated. 6. De Zelandis fuis 
Commentariolus; Leyden, 1611, 
LEM'NOS, an iiland in the iEgean Sea, between Te- 
nedos, Imbros, and Samothrace. It was facred to Vul¬ 
can, called Lemnius Pater , who fell there when kicked 
down from heaven by Jupiter. It was celebrated for two 
horrible malfacres : that of the Lemnian women murder¬ 
ing their hufbands ; and that of the Lemnians, or Pelafgi,. 
in killing all the children they had had by fome Athenian 
women whom they had carried away to become their 
wives. Thefe two a£ls of cruelty gave rife to the proverb 
of Lemnian aElions, as applied to barbarous and inhuman 
deeds. The firft inhabitants of Lemnos were the Pelafgi, 
or rather the Thracians, who were murdered by their 
wives. After them came the children of the Lemnian 
widows by the Argonauts, whofe defeendants were at laft 
expelled by the Pelafgi, about 1160 years before the Chrif- 
tian era. Lemnos is about 112 miles in circumference, 
according to Pliny, who fays, that it is often fhadowed 
by Mount Athos, though at the diftance of 87 miles. It 
has been called Hipfipyle, from queen Hipfipyle. This 
iiland was confecrated to Vulcan in the time of Homer, 
probably on account of two volcanoes, which were here 
continually calting forth flames, and which were confi- 
dered as the forges of the hulband of Venus. No veftiges 
of thefe volcanoes now remain ; but Sonnini thinks it pro¬ 
bable that interior fires are ftill burning here; for he met 
with a fpring of hot water, which has been brought to 
fupply baths, and another of aluminous water. The 
prielts of Lemnos were reckoned famous for the cure of 
wounds. For this reafon the Greeks, who went to the 
liege of Troy, left here Philoftetus, after he bad been 
wounded in the foot by one of the arrows of Hercules. 
The efficacy of their {kill depended, as it has been faid, 
upon the quality of that bole called Lemnian earth ; which 
fee under Argilla in the article Mineralogy. It is alfo 
faid, that Galen made a voyage to Lemnos on purpofe 
for afeertaining the virtues of this earth; and that he 
found a perfon who had availed himfelf of it as an anti¬ 
dote to the bites of reptiles, and to poifon. This iiland 
retained the name of Lemnos, by which it is even now 
known; but navigators have given it the name of Stali- 
mene. The iiland is hilly, but extremely fertile; it yields 
corn, cotton, oil, and filk, with which a few light Huff’s 
are manufactured. To be flourifhing, lays Sonnini, Lem¬ 
nos wants only to be delivered from its opprelTors. Na¬ 
ture has done every thing for it; and we lament the ftate 
of languor and wretchednefs to which its deftiny has re¬ 
duced it. Its inhabitants were formerly much given to 
navigation, or at leaft to the carrying-trade; they are ftill 
trading mariners, becaufe this kind of induftry efcapes 
more eafily the cupidity of tyrants than affluence pro¬ 
duced 
