SCOTCH ASPHODEL. 
has long been cultivated in kitchen gardens 
for the sake of its esculent root; but is now in 
much less request than at former periods. Its 
root is carrot-shaped, and about the thickness of 
a finger, and is white within, and has a milky 
juice, and is covered with a dark brown skin; 
its stem is smooth, and branches at the top, and 
is garnished with a few half-sheathing leaves, 
and has a height of about 3 feet; its lower leaves 
are acutely pointed, waved and sinuated, and 
about 9 or 10 inches long and 14 inch broad in 
the middle; its upper and half-sheathing leaves 
are linear; its flowers grow in scaly calyxes, and 
comprise many narrow tongue-shaped florets, 
lying imbricatedly like the scales of a fish, and 
have a bright yellow colour, and bloom from 
June till September ; and its fruit contains a mass 
of oblong cornered seeds, and has at the top a 
roundish ball of feathery down. This plant is 
raised, for culinary purposes, from seed sown in 
April or May; and must, for prolonged use, be 
raised in proper succession, as it sometimes runs 
to seed in the same year in which it is sown. It 
thrives in any common soil; and it may be sown 
either broadcast or in drills, but must be thinned 
out to distances of about a foot from plant to 
plant. The roots of plants sown in April and 
May are in full growth for use in autumn and 
winter; and they are eaten boiled. The name 
scorzonera is derived from a word signifying 
“viper ;” and both it and the popular name of 
viper-grass were given to the plant in allusion 
to some fancied medicinal power. 
SCOTCH ASPHODEL,—botanically Tofieldia 
Palustris. A curious, indigenous, evergreen herb, 
of the melanthium tribe. It grows wild on up- 
land bogs, and on the marshy banks and neigh- 
bourhoods of pools and rills. Its root is woody ; 
its stem is solitary and about 4 inches high; its 
leaves grow in two-ranked radical tufts, and are 
ensiform, ribbed, incurved at the point, and about 
two inches long; and its flowers are produced at 
the top of the stem in a small oblong spike or 
head, and are greenish-white and inodorous, and 
bloom in July and August. 
SCOTCH FIR. See Piz, 
SCOTCH KALE. See Borucorz. 
SCOTCH LABURNUM. See Lasurnum. 
SCOTCH LILAC. See Lrnac. 
_SCOTTIA. A genus of ornamental, Austra- 
lian, evergreen shrubs, of the genista division of 
the composite order. Two species, both about 3 
feet high, the one with red and green flowers, 
and the other with yellow and scarlet flowers, 
have been introduced to the greenhouses and 
conservatories of Britain. 
SCOURING. See Purcaine, Drarruaa, and 
DYSENTERY. 
SCRATCHES. Troublesome ulcerations about 
the heels of horses, occasioned by ill-treatment, 
negligence, and filth. They are a virulent kind 
of cracks, and are frequent concomitants of 
grease. See the article Gruasz. 
a 
SCURV Y-GRASS. 159 
SCREENING. The sifting of earth or seeds 
or mixed dry substances through a large oblong 
sieve or riddle, called a screen. 
SCREW-PINE. See Panpanus. 
SCREW-TREEH, — botanically /elicteres. A 
genus of ornamental, tropical, evergreen shrubs, 
of the bombax family. Nearly a dozen species, 
varying in height from 6 to 14 feet, have been 
introduced to the hothouses of Britain; and 
some more are known. The leaves of some are 
heart-shaped and marshmallow-like; and the 
flowers of most are either red, brown, purple, 
yellow, or white. The Isore species, Helicteres 
sora, may be regarded as the type of the whole 
genus; and has the rank in India of a medicinal 
plant, and was introduced to Britain in 1783. 
It attains a height of 12 or 13 feet, and is very 
branchy or bushy, and carries yellow flowers in 
June and July. Its root and its fruit are the 
medicinal parts;—and the latter is a contorted 
capsule, consisting of five fibres twisted in the 
shape of a screw; and varies in length from one 
inch to 2} inches; and is alluded to in both the 
popular and the botanical names of the genus,— 
the latter being formed from a word which sig- 
nifies a screw. The juice of the root has the 
reputation, among some Indian pharmacists, of 
being a powerful stomachic; and a liniment, 
prepared with the powder of the fruit, 1s sup- 
posed to be a valuable application in cases of 
offensive sores inside of the ears. All the species 
of screw-tree in British collections love a soil of 
peaty loam, and are propagable from cuttings. 
SCROPHULA. A deep-seated and malignant 
cutaneous disease, popularly called the king’s 
evil. The name is derived from a word signify- 
ing a sow, and was suggested by the fact of swine 
being subject to the disease. But sheep also are 
sometimes attacked with a very virulent kind of 
scrophulous malady, which, in their case, is some- 
times called ‘ the evil,’ and sometimes bears other 
names. This malady is first indicated by a hard 
swelling of the glands under the jaws; it after- 
wards throws out about the head and the neck, 
a succession of small pustules, which break, and 
discharge a white matter, and heal, and multi- 
ply; and it eventually dehbilitates and emaciates 
its victims till they sink into irretrievable weak- 
ness and die. It rarely attacks more than a few 
individuals of a flock. The only known remedy 
for it is iodine; and this has been somewhat 
successfully used in the forms of hydriodate of 
potash administered in a daily dose of 4 or 5 
grains in gruel, and of ointment of iodide of 
mercury rubbed upon the pustulated parts. 
SCROPHULARIA. See Fireworr. 
SCUFFLER. See Grupsur and Harrow. 
SCURVY - GRASS, — botanically Cochlearia. 
A genus of herbaceous plants, of the cruciferous 
order. Four species grow wild in Britain; 9 or 
10 species, all hardy, and chiefly white-flowered 
and but a few inches high, have been introduced 
from other countries; and about 20 other species 
