SCITAMINECE. I ?. 
when they are strumous, scirrhous , or cancerous, you may 
see. Wiseman. 
. SCI'RRHUS, Scirroma or Scirrhosis, s. [ schirre, 
Fr., ovappos, Gr.,] An indurated gland.—Any of these three 
may degenerate into a scirrkus, and that scirrhus into a 
cancer. Wiseman .■—See Surgery. 
SCIRRONES, a name given to a sort of small lice 
breeding under the skin. 
SCIRROPHORIA, S/cippopopfa, in Antiquity, an anni¬ 
versary solemnity at Athens, upon the twelfth day of the 
month Scirrophorion, in honour of Minerva, or, as some 
say, of Ceres and Proserpine. The name is derived from 
Sciras, a borough between Athens and Eleusis, in which 
was a temple dedicated to Minerva, surnamed Sciras. 
SCIRROPHORION, 'Sni^ocpopav, in Ancient Chrono¬ 
logy, the twelfth and last month of the Athenian year. It 
contained twenty-nine days, and answered to the latter part 
of our May and beginning of June. 
It had its name from the feast of Scirrophoria, kept in it. 
SCISCITA'TION, s. [ sciscitatus , Lat] Enquiry : an 
unusual word.—Without all sciscitations to go blindfold 
whither he will lead us. Bp. Hall. 
SCI'SSIBLE, adj. [from scissus, Lat.] Capable of 
being divided smoothly by a sharp edge.—'The differences of 
impressible and not impressible, scissible and not scissible, 
and many other passions of matter, are plebeian notions. 
Bacon. 
SCTSSILE, adj. [scissile, Fr., scissilis, Lat.] Capable 
of being cut or divided smoothly by a sharp edge.—Animal 
fat is a sort of amphibious substance, scissile like a solid, 
and resolveable by heat. Arbuthnot. 
SCI'SSION, s. [ scission , Fr., scissio, Lat.] The act of 
cutting.—Nerves may be wounded by scission or puncture: 
the fonner way they are usually cut through, and wholly 
cease from action. Wiseman. 
SCI'SSOR, s. [This word is variously written, as it is 
supposed to be derived by different writers; of whom some 
write cisors, from cccdo, or incido ; others scissors, from 
scindo; and some cisars, cizars, or scissors, from ciseaux, 
Fr.] A small pair of sheers, or blades movable on a pivot, 
and intercepting the thing to be cut. 
His beard they have sing’d off with brands of fire; 
And ever, as it blaz’d, they threw on him 
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair: 
My master preaches patience to him, and the while 
His man with scissors nicks him for a fool. Shakspeare. 
SCI'SSURE, s. [ scissura, Lat.] A crack; a rent; a 
fissure.—Thus let out at the scissure, as at the window. Ham¬ 
mond. 
SC1TAMINEcE, in Botany, a very natural and im¬ 
portant order of plants, the eighth among the Fragmenfa of 
Linnaeus, and equivalent to the Cannes of Jussieu. Its name 
alludes to the aromatic qualities of most of the species, and 
particularly to the use made of some of them in cookery or 
in medicine; scitamentum being expressive of any thing ren¬ 
dered grateful to the palate, by seasoning or other prepara¬ 
tion. Accordingly, the ginger, turmeric, zedoary, and va¬ 
rious sorts of cardamoms, belong to this order. It stands 
between the Orchideee and Spathaceee, but is perhaps most 
related to the former, though essentially distinct from both, 
in many decisive respects. 
The genera referred to this order by Linnaeus are Musa , 
JJeliconia, Thalia, Mar ant a, Globba, Costus, Alpinia, 
Amomum, Curcuma, Kccmpferia, Canna, Renealmia and 
Myrosma. 
The order of Scitaminece, including the Cannes, coming 
at the very threshold of the Linnaean artificial system, and 
being in themselves very attractive, curious, and rare, have 
particularly engaged the attention of several distinguished 
botanists, but with very unequal success. No plants have 
been less understood, by Linnaeus and his immediate fol¬ 
lowers, with regard to their genera, and the principles upon 
which these ought to be founded. None of these writers 
indeed have been furnished with sufficient materials for the 
Vol. XXII. No. 1541. 
purpose. Koenig, who had access to many more species 
of this family in a living state, than any other Linnaean bo¬ 
tanist, has contented himself with drawing up full descrip¬ 
tions of each, without adverting to principles of arrange¬ 
ment. His descriptions, published by Retzius in his'third 
fasciculus of Observationes Botanic^, are a fund of useful 
matter; and the contemplation of them seems to have sug¬ 
gested to Retzius an idea of the only true principle by 
which the genera of these plants can, with any certainty, 
be distinguished, which is derived from the shape of the 
stamen. The writer last-mentioned has, nevertheless, not 
turned this principle to any account. The ingenious pro¬ 
fessor Swartz, who has so well illustrated the Orchidece, and 
whose attention was called to the Scitaminece by their near 
affinity to that tribe, as well as by the great obscurity in 
which he found them involved, has not thrown any light on 
their generic distribution. On the contrary, he asserts that 
their genera are so nearly akin as hardly to be distinguish¬ 
able by botanical characters. The French botanists have 
done absolutely nothing to clear up this family, but have 
adopted the ideas, and all the mistakes, of Linnaeus. 
Mr. Brown in his Prodr. Nov. Holl., thus defines the true 
Scitaminece :—Perianth superior, double, both tubular; the 
outer (probably accessory) shortest, its margin somewhat 
three-lobed: inner with a double limb; the outermost in 
three deep, nearly equal, segments; the anterior segment 
(which, by the reversed position of the flower, often be¬ 
comes posterior) sometimes differently shaped from the rest; 
the innermost dissimilar, deeply three-cleft; its larger seg¬ 
ment, or lip, inserted between the lateral divisions of the 
outer limb, and often two or three-lobed; its lateral seg¬ 
ments smaller, sometimes diminutive, like little teeth, or 
scarcely discernable. 
Stamen one, inserted into the throat, within the anterior 
segment of the outer limb, and therefore opposite to the 
lip. Filament mostly dilated, and resembling a petal, often 
extended beyond the anther, in a simple or divided form. 
Anther closely attached lengthwise, except at its base, to 
the filament, of two distinct parallel lobes, each lobe of 
two cells, bursting longitudinally, the inflexed edges of their 
suture being originally connected with their internal parti¬ 
tion, which last finally disappears; the base of each lobe is 
often not attached to the filament, and occasionally ends in 
a spur. Pollen globose, smooth. 
Corpuscles two, which are in fact barren stamens, small, 
nearly cylindrical, close to the base of the style, sometimes 
combined, rarely wanting. 
Germen of three, sometimes incompletely separated, cells, 
with the rudiments of many seeds in each, which are in¬ 
serted, in a double row, into the inner angle of the cell. 
Style thread-shaped, received into a channel of the filament. 
Stigma dilated, hollow. 
Capsule with three cells, three valves, occasionally be¬ 
coming pulpy, and many seeds. Partitions,, almost always 
central, inserted into the axis of the valve, frequently sepa¬ 
rated therefrom at length, and of a different substance. 
Seeds roundish, generally becoming angular by mutual 
pressure, either tunicated or naked. Albumen farinaceous, 
of a radiated substance, deficient at the scar. Vitellus fleshy, 
somewhat funnel-shaped, contrary to the scar, mostly, per¬ 
haps always, perforated at the base, for the transmission of 
the radicle. Embryo sheathed by the vitellus, but not at¬ 
tached to it, monocotyledonous, nearly cylindrical. Radicle 
reaching almost as far as the scar, tor the most part naked, 
and not enclosed either in the vitellus or albumen. 
These are aromatic herbs, of rather a peculiar habit, 
growing chiefly between the tropics, and scarely reaching 
so far as the thirty-fourth degree of latitude. The root is 
perennial, mostly tuberous, creeping. Stem simple, some¬ 
times very short. Leaves simple, with a single midrib, send¬ 
ing off - , at acute angles, very numerous, crowded, perfectly 
simple veins: the footstalk sheathing, split at one side, and 
either naked at the summit, or crowned with a membranous 
appendage, as in grasses, which is sometimes entire, form¬ 
ing a lesser sheath above the insertion of the leaf itself. In-. 
9 T florescence 
