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| perienced by the use of strong tea. 
TEAK-WOOD. 
sedatives on the heart and blood-vessels. These 
effects of tea are familiar to most persons. It is 
a common practice with those who desire noc- 
turnal study to use tea; and, on the same prin- 
ciple, it may be employed as an anti-soporific to 
counteract the effects of opium and intoxicating 
liquors, and to relieve the stupor of fever. Asa 
diluent and sedative, it is well adapted for febrile 
and inflammatory disorders, and most persons 
| can bear testimony to its good effects in these 
cases. ‘To its sedative influence, also, should be 
ascribed the relief of headache sometimes ex- 
In colds, 
catarrhs, and slight rheumatic cases, warm tea 
is used as a diluent, diaphoretic, and diuretic. 
| Strong green tea produces on some constitutions, 
| usually those popularly known as nervous, very 
severe effects. It gives rise to tremor, anxiety, 
sleeplessness, and most distressing feelings. On 
others, however, none of these symptoms are 
manifest. Part of the ill effects sometimes as- 
cribed to tea may be owing to the use of so much 
aqueous liquid—to the temperature of the liquid 
—to milk and sugar used with it—or to the action 
of the tannin on the digestive liquid. But, inde- 
pendently of these, tea possesses a specific and 
marked influence over the functions of the brain, 
not referable to any of the circumstances just 
alluded to. Weak tea rarely disagrees with the 
invalid, and is admissible in a variety of mala- 
dies, in most of which it proves refreshing and 
agreeable. It is well adapted for febrile and in- 
flammatory complaints; and is particularly valu- 
able when we are desirous of checking sleep. 
Moreover, if the suggestions of Liebig be correct, 
tea is by no means to be considered as a mere 
diluent, but as possessing nutritive powers of no 
mean kind.” 
TEAK-WOOD,—botanically Tectona. An ever- 
green, tropical timber-tree, of the verbena family. 
It is a native of many parts of India, and com- 
monly attains a height of about 100 feet. It 
constitutes a genus of itself; and is specifically 
called grandis or the great. Its timber possesses 
vast economical value in India, and is generally 
used in ship-building, house-carpentry, and fur- 
niture-making. That of the Malabar coast is the 
most esteemed; and that of the Coromandel 
coast, near the banks of the Godavery, holds the 
second place. The plant was introduced to the 
botanical collections of Britain in the latter part 
of last century. 
TEAL,—scientifically Anas Crecca. A British 
bird of the duck genus. It is an early and con- 
stant winter inhabitant of Britain, arriving in 
the latter part or about the end of September, 
and departing at a somewhat advanced period of 
spring. It is the smallest of our ducks, but a 
very prettily marked species, and one of the best 
as an article of food. The total length of the 
full-grown male is 14} inches; the forehead and 
a narrow band on the top of the head have a rich 
chestnut brown colour; the part backward from 
TEASEL. 41] 
the eye is marked with a patch of rich glossy 
green; the neck and the upper part of the back 
display a mixture of black and white in trans- 
verse lines; the breast and the belly are white; 
and the lower part of the front of the neck is 
partially marked with circular black spots. 
TEAM. ‘Two or more horses, oxen, or other 
beasts of draught drawing together the same 
agricultural implement or wheeled vehicle. 
TEA-PLANT. See Tra. 
TEASEL,—botanically Dipsacus. A genus of 
herbaceous calyciflorous plants, constituting the 
type of the natural order Dipsacee. This order 
is very nearly akin to the Composit, and pos- 
sesses a very similar habit and general appear- 
ance. All its plants are herbaceous, and produce 
their flowers in heads. All are capable of very 
easy cultivation; some are eminent beauties of 
the flower-border ; and a few possess economical 
or medicinal properties. About 120 species, be- 
longing to 8 or 10 genera, occur in the wastes 
and gardens and botanical collections of Britain ; 
and excepting about 10, which require the pro- 
tection of the greenhouse, all are hardy. 
The teasel genus comprises three indigenous 
species, four introduced species, and several 
known unintroduced exotic species. Its flowers 
are monopetalous, tubular, and four-cleft, and, 
together with the proper calyxes, stand on the 
summit of the single seed, which is terminated 
by an entire, cross-shaped crown; its involucrum 
or common calyx is many-leaved ; and its recep- 
tacle is conical, and has long, rigid, entire chaff 
or pale. All the seven species in Britain are 
hardy biennials, propagable from seeds; they 
vary in height from 3 to 7 feet, and, for the most 
part, bloom in July; and four are purple-flow- 
ered, one blue-flowered, and two white-flowered. 
The fuller’s teasel, Dipsacus fullonum, occurs 
about the hedges of several parts of England, but 
is rare in its wild state, and has long been culti- 
vated in the vicinity of some manufacturing 
towns, for its use in raising the nap of woollen 
cloths. Its root is fleshy, branched, and tapering ; 
its stem is erect, strongly furrowed, prickly, leafy, 
branched at the top, and about six feet high; its 
leaves are sessile, entire, and beset with small 
scattered spines on their margins and surfaces,— 
and those of the stem are opposite and joined 
together at the base; and its flowers are very 
numerous, and have a-whitish colour, with pale 
purple anthers, and grow in close, obtuse, conical 
heads, with the chaff or intermediate scales 
bristly at the edges, and rigid, spiny, and re- 
curved at the points, and bloom in July. The 
scales are just strong enough to raise the wool of 
cloth, and give way before they can injure it; 
and they are used by being fixed round the cir- 
cumference of a large broad wheel or cylinder, 
which revolves in contact with the cloth. Many 
mechanical inventions have been introduced to 
supersede them; but all have proved bad substi- 
tutes, and been found either inefficient or in- 
iia NPSL PRONE HE SE. VPS RUC (eet nC See OY SEEN GEOR BECP Ean SOR | 
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