PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Aspeeuoo. 285 
viscid with mucilage. (Mr. Thomson observes that the leaves exemplify 
a variety of the subulate bristle, seated on a vesicular tubercle, containing 
a fluid which is ejected through the bristle when it is compressed so as to 
wound the finger; and which, being left in the wound, excites a slight 
degree of inflammation in the part. E.) Leaves egg-spear-shaped, 
(more or less toothed, wavy. E.) Blossom segments spear-shaped ; the 
prominences , one rising from the base of each segment, brownish, half egg- 
shaped. Filaments , the portion above the insertion of the anthers cylin¬ 
drical, dark blue, that below the insertion thick, brown, and glandular. 
Anthers black. 
Common Borage. (Welsh: JBronwerth. Tafod yr yclu E.) Originally 
from Aleppo ; but now found in many parts of Europe. Walls and 
amongst rubbish, (but suspected not to be originally indigenous. On the 
Ballast Hills of Tyne and Wear. Mr. Winch. E.) Banks of the river 
near Tavistock. Mr. Knappe. On the summit of a high rock at Lllan- 
drydno near Conway. Rev. S. Dickenson. (Godshill, Isle of Wight. Mr. 
W. D. Snooke. Burnt Island. Mr. Maughan. Debris of Salisbury 
Craigs. Mr. Bainbridge. Grev. Edin. 
With white blossoms. Entrance into Sandwich from Deal, and about 
Lymne Castle. Dillwyn, in Bot. Guide. E.) B. June—Aug.* 
ASPERU'GO.f ( Bloss . shortly infundibuliform, mouth closed 
with convex scales : Seeds Omits,) covered by the ca- 
lyx. E.) 
A. procum'bens. Calyx when in fruit compressed. 
(E. Bot. 661. E.)— Kniph. 3— FI. Dan. 652 — H. Ox. xi. 26. 13— Ger. 963 — 
Dod. 356—Ger. Em. 1122. 2—Lob. Obs.^66. 2—Garid. 9—J.B. iii. 600. 
2, and 601. 2. 
( Stems angular, twelve to eighteen inches long, procumbent, rough, with 
hooked prickles. Leaves mostly ternate, pointing upwards, oblong- 
lanceolate, acute, the lower ones on foot-stalks, rough with prickles. 
Blossoms small, blue, axillary, on short peduncles, which are deflexed 
when in fruit, with an enlarged calyx. E.) 
Trailing Catchweed. (German Madwort. E.) In roads and 
amongst rubbish. (Wangford, near Brandon, Suffolk, where it was 
* By the experiments of M. Marggraff, Mem. de Berlin, 1747, p. 72, it appears that 
the juice affords a true nitre.—Borage is now seldom used inwardly but as an ingredient in 
cool tankards for summer drinking, though the young and tender leaves are agreeable in 
salads, or as a pot-herb. (It Was formerly esteemed a principal vegetable cordial, as testi¬ 
fies the Latin proverb, 
“Ego Borago gaudia semper ago 
or, as Gerard has it, “ Those of our time do vse the flowers in sallads to exhilarate and 
make the minde glad. There be also many things made of them, vsed every where for the 
comfort of the hart, for the driving away of sorrowe, and increasing the ioie of the minde.” 
Pity it were that even a fictitious expellant of the Blue Devils should become obsolete ; 
better even to be cheated into good spii'its, than suffered to sink into melancholia, for want 
of a little credulity. The great Bacon himself never presumed to doubt that “ the leaf of 
Burrage hath an excellent spirit to repress the fuliginous vapour of dusky melancholy.” 
However this may be, it still affords nourishment to Phalcena Gamma : and few apiarians 
will neglect to cultivate a plot of it for the benefit of their moral instructors. E.) 
t (From asperitas; descriptive of the roughness of its leaves and stems j by which it 
adheres to whatever it touches. E.) 
