R H A 
the population of the state. At present there are a few old 
women, who shave their heads, wear a white dress, follow 
funerals, and carry water to the convents; and these vene¬ 
rable dames are treated with some portion of respect. 
Symes's Ava. 
RHAIADAR. See Rhayader. 
RHAIR, a considerable river of Hindoostan, which runs 
by the south side of Shawpour. The stream, which is 
about 100 yards wide and four feet in depth, dashes with 
•great rapidity over a bed of rock ; which prevents its being 
navigable for large boats. This river rises in the hills. 
RHAMNiE, or Rhannje, in ancient geography, a peo¬ 
ple of India, in the mountains near the river Namadus. 
Ptolemy. 
RHAMNI, in botany, a natural order of plants in Jussieu, 
being the 95th in his series, or the 13th of his 14th class, 
and owing its name to the principal genus. 
The order is thus defined.—Calyx inferior, of one leaf, 
with a definite number of segments in the limb. Petals five, 
rarely four or six, and very rarely wanting, inserted into the 
upper part of the calyx, or into its disk, either opposite to, 
ur alternate with, its segments, and equal to them in num¬ 
ber ; sometimes resembling little scales, and furnished with 
claws ; sometimes united by their broad bases. Stamens of 
the same number as the petals, and inserted into the same 
part, either alternate with them, or opposite to them. Ger- 
men superior, encompassed below with the disk of the calyx. 
Styles either solitary or of some definite number. Stigmas 
one or more. Fruit superior; in some instances pulpy, 
either with many cells, or many nuts, the cells, or nuts, 
single-seeded ; in other cases capsular, of many cells and 
many valves, the partitions from the middle of each valve, 
and the cells containing either one or two Seeds. Corculum 
flat and straight, surrounded with a fleshy albumen. Stem 
arboreous or shrubby. Leaves either alternate or opposite, 
accompanied by stipulas, that are often very minute. 
Section 1. Stamens alternate with the petals. Fruit cap¬ 
sular. Staphylea; euonymus; and celastrus of Linnaeus; 
with polycardia of Lamarck. 
Sect. 2. Stamens alternate with the petals. Fruit a drupa 
or berry. Some genera of this section have the petals con¬ 
nected by their broad base.—Myginda; goupia of Aublet, 
which is glossopetalum of Schreber; rubentia of Com- 
merson, certainly the same genus with Jacquin’s elaeoden- 
drum, as Jussieu indeed suspected; cassine; schrebera of 
Linnaeus, a genus founded altogether in error, as we shall 
explain in its proper place ; Ilex and prinos. 
Sect. 3. Stamens opposite to the petals. Fruit drupa¬ 
ceous.—Mayepea of Aublet, erroneously placed here, as 
belonging really to the jasmineae samara; rhamnus; ziziphus ; 
paliurus; the two last separated from the Linnaean rham¬ 
nus, by Jussieu. 
Sect. 4. Stamens opposite to the petals. Fruit three-lobed. 
—Colletia of Commerson, Lamarck Illustr. t. 129; ceano- 
thus; hovenia; and phylica; to which is to be added Lasio- 
petalum. 
Sect. 5. • Genera akin to rhamni, their germen mostly 
superior.—Bruniaof Linnaeus, some of' whose reputed species 
have the germen superior, others inferior ; and bumalda of 
Thunberg. 
Sect. 6. Genera akin to rhamni, but differing in having 
an inferior germen.—Gouania ; plecfronia, dubiously admis¬ 
sible here, as we have observed in its proper place ; carpo- 
detus of Forster; aucuba of Thunberg; and glossoma of 
Schreber, which is Aublet’s votomita. 
‘ RHAMNUS, [from the Gr. oayvot;, which is derived by 
de Theis from the Celtic Ram, a branch.] in botany, a 
a genus of the class pentandria, order mouogyhia, natural 
order of dumosce, rhamni. (Juss.) Generic Character.—• 
Calyx none: unless the corolla be taken for it. Corolla: 
petal imperforate, externally rude, internally coloured, funnel- 
form : tube turbinate-cylindrical: border spreading, divided, 
acute. Scalets five, very small, each at the base of each division 
of the border, converging. Stamina: filaments as many as 
there are segments of the corolla, awl-shaped, inserted-into' 
Vot. XXII. No. 1483. 
R H A 41 
the petal under the scalelet. Anthers small. Pistil: germ 
roundish. Style filiform, the length of the stamens. 
Stigma blunt, divided into fewer segments than the corolla. 
Pericarp : berry roundish, naked, divided into fewer parts 
internally than the corolla. Seeds solitary, roundish, gib¬ 
bous on one side, flatted on the, other. That part of the 
flower, which is here called the corolla, is more properly 
the perianth ; and the scalelets placed close to the stamens 
should be named the petals.— Essential Character. —Calyx 
tubular. Corolla: scales defending the stamens inserted into 
the calyx. Berry. , . ' , 
I.—Thorny. 
1. Rhamnus catharticus, or purging buckthorn.—The 
purging or common buckthorn rises with a strong woody 
stem to the height of twelve or fourteen feet, sending out 
many irregular branches : the young shoots have a smooth 
greyish-brown bark; but the older branches have a darker 
and rougher bark, and are armed with a few short thorns. 
Leaves two inches and a half long, by one and a quarter 
broad, dark green above but pale or light green beneath, 
having a pretty strong midrib, and several nerves proceeding 
from it, which diverge towards the sides, but meet again 
near the point: they stand upon pretty long slender foot¬ 
stalks. The flowers come out in clusters from the side of the 
branches: those of the male have as many stamens as there 
are divisions in the petal; those of the female (or herma¬ 
phrodite) have a roundish germ, which afterwards becomes 
a pulpy berry of a roundish form, inclosing four hard seeds. 
—Native of Europe, in hedges and woods : flowering from 
the end of April to June, and ripening its berries about the 
end of September. 
According to Pallas, the buckthorn is common in the 
champaign and temperate parts of Russia and southern 
Siberia, but scarcely beyond the Irtis. The trunk is often 
thicker than a man’s arm, and the wood very hard, of a 
reddish colour. The flowers are for the most part herma¬ 
phrodite, and clustered ; in the gardens fewer and nearly 
sol itary. 
The juice of the unripe berries has the colour of saffron, 
and is used for staining maps or paper: these are sold under 
the name of French berries. The juice of the ripe berries, 
mixed with alum, is the sap-green of the painters; but if 
the berries be gathered late in the autumn, the juice is 
purple. The bark affords a beautiful yellow dye. The 
inner bark, like that of elder, is a strong cathartic, and 
excites vomiting. The juice made into a syrup is the 
officinal preparation; about an ounce is a moderate dose, but 
it is rarely prescribed except in conjunction with some 
other purging medicines. 
2. Rhamnus infectorius, or dwarf, or yellow-berried 
buckthorn.—This is a procumbent shrub. The leaves are 
villose underneath. The calyx goblet-shaped and toothless. 
Stigmas two, reflexed. 
It differs from the preceding, according to Gerard, in 
having the segments of the corolla the length of the tube, 
never longer. 
Scopoli adds, that it differs in the whole habit, its place 
of growth, the naked spines, the leaves villose underneath, 
the calyx toothless and goblet-shaped, and the berries 
having commonly one ctll empty.—Native of the south of 
Europe. Cultivated in 1683, by Mr. James Sutherland. 
3. Rhamnus lycioides.—A shrub of about three feet high, 
very much branched,’ the branches spreading and terminated 
by a spine: the bark of a brown ash-colour and smooth. 
The leaves are sublinear, obtuse, narrower at the base, very 
smooth, sessile, fasciculated; the fascicles alternately 
scattered : several transparent pores are disseminated through¬ 
out the whole surface. The flowers arise solitary from the 
fascicles of leaves, and are two or three, supported on 
capillary footstalks shorter than the leaves. The calyx is 
yellow. There is no corolla. The filaments of the stamens 
are equal in number to the scales, and are capillary, upright- ■ 
recurvate, and situated within the calyx near, the germ: 
anthers globose. Germ globose, reddish; styles two,' some- 
M times 
