462 HEXANDRIA. HEXAGYNIA. Aristolochia. 
(Var. 2. Floribus serotinis. Blossom accompanying the leaves in the spring, 
divisions very large, green, and leaf-like; stamens imperfect. 
E. Bot. 1432— Cam. Epit. 846. 
Shown to Sir J. E. Smith by Mr. Salmon, who observed it growing thus 
year after year in a meadow near Devizes. E.) 
(Var. 3. Fl. albo. Blossom perfectly white; segments alternately larger 
and smaller; stamens three longer and three shorter. In pastures about 
the Rookery, Brislington, and about Pensford, near Bristol. E.) 
HEXAGYNIA. 
ARISTOLO'CHIA.* Bloss. one petal, tongue-shaped, in¬ 
flated at the base : Stamens near the germen : Caps, six- 
celled, beneath. 
A. clemati'tis. Leaves heart-shaped : stem upright : flowers crowded, 
pedunculate, axillary. 
{Hook. Fl. Lond. 149— E. Bot. 398. E.)— Ludw. 105— Riv. Mon. 116— 
Mill. Illustr.—Mill. Ic. 51. 1— Woodv. 238— Blackw. 255—Kniph. 1— 
Clus. ii. 71— Dod. 326 — Lob. Obs. 332 2— Ic. i. 697. 2 —Ger. Em. 847. 4 
— II. Ox. xii. 17. 5— Ger. 69?— Lonic. i. 134. 2— Fuchs. 90— Trag. 178— 
Matth. 648— Gars. 5. A. 
(Increases fast by its long and slender creeping root: should therefore be 
cautiously admitted into gardens. E.) Stem upright, two or three feet 
high, simple, scored, cylindrical, smooth, slightly flexuose. Leaves 
alternate, blunt, shining above, pale green, smooth and veiny underneath. 
Leafstalks nearly as long as the leaves. Flowers sometimes double. 
as a narcotic, and drastic purge, particularly in cases of dropsy. Sir Everard Home sub¬ 
mits, that the clear tincture is equally efficacious in curing the gout, as the celebrated 
French remedy, Eau Medicinale, (of which this plant is supposed to constitute a 
principal ingredient;) without proving so destructive to the constitution. Vid. Phil. Tr. 
1817. Dr. Scudamore has ably treated of these pretended specifics in gout, and condemns 
them as ultimately injurious. E.) 
In a pasture in which were several horses, and eaten down nearly bare, the grass was 
closely cropped even under the leaves, but not a leaf bitten. Mr. Woodward. (In many 
instances it has proved fatal to cows. Salisbury. Hungry calves have been killed by feeding 
on this herbage early in the spring; Purton : but in general animals shun, as though 
aware by instinct of 
-“ the baleful juice 
Which poisonous Colchian glebes produce.” 
So virulent do the effects of Colchicum appear to be, that even the fingers have been 
benumbed in preparing it; and a single grain in a crumb of bread taken internally has 
produced burning heat in the stomach and bowels, strangury, tenesmus, hiccup, &c.—The 
flowers and seeds have likewise occasioned violent symptoms. Stiieck. The functions of 
the roots being of more than ordinary importance, they would seem to be specially pro¬ 
tected from the ravages of subterraneous insects by the acrid juice with which they are 
imbued. They afford an admirable exemplification of what Linnaeus termed the hyherna- 
culuniy or winter cradle of the plant.—As an elegant writer has observed, “the flowering 
of the Colchicum invariably announces the defoliation of deciduous trees ; and while the 
‘ sear and yellow leaves’ are so many emblems of mortality to the descending year, like 
the infant in the poem of the Persian Sadi, it smiles on the bosom of its dying parent.” E.) 
* (Apio-rog , best, and Ao^sow, to bring forth ; from its supposed efficacy in promoting 
parturition. E.) 
