40 
Norfolk, near Uxbridge in Middlesex, and in 
fresh-water marshes of many other parts of Eng- 
land; and it abounds in most of the ditches and 
standing waters of Holland. It will not thrive 
under the shade of trees, but will grow well in 
any moist part of a garden, yet will not produce 
its spikes of flowers except when growing in 
water. Its flowers appear in the end of June, 
and continue till August. Its roots are the well- 
known Calamus aromaticus of the drug shops, and 
have long been in reputation as an aromatic and 
tonic bitter. This substance is used in this coun- 
try as a simple medicine, by chewing or decoc- 
tion; as an ingredient in some compound drugs, 
—particularly compound tincture of gentian ; 
and as a principal medicament in the prepara- 
tion of the medicated malt liquors called herb 
ales; and it is used throughout the United States 
of America for making bitters, and is supposed 
to be the ingredient used by the French for giv- 
ing flavour to their snuff called a la violette. The 
whole plant has been used for tanning leather ; 
and in Poland, it is strewed on the floors of the 
upper and middle classes of society when they 
are about to receive company, in order that the 
leaves may be bruised by the feet of the guests, 
‘and fill the rooms with an agreeable odour. Its 
medicinal qualities were, at one time, greatly over- 
rated; and were alleged to be effective for re- 
moving obstructions of the liver and spleen, for 
promoting a flow of urine and the menses, and 
for resisting putrefaction. 
ACOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. Vegetables 
which have no seed-lobes in their embryos or rudi- 
mental parts of their future plants, or which have 
no proper seeds, but propagate themselves by 
means of small granules designated spores or spo- 
rules, They are supposed to comprise about 8,000 
or 10,000 species, or nearly one-fifth of all the 
plants which exist ; and they constitute one of the 
three grand primary divisions of the natural or 
Jussieuan system of botany, and nearly correspond 
to the cryptogamous division of Linnzeus, or aga- 
mous division of Humboldt. They comprise only 
the lower grades of the vegetable kingdom, and 
exhibit, in their outward aspect and internal 
structure, little of the loveliness of form, the 
brilliance of colouring, and the complication of 
organism which distinguish the higher grades of 
plants. Many of them, as the moulds and nos- 
tocs, appear to the eye mere slime or mucus; 
many, as the protococcus and the byssus, consist 
merely of clusters of minute threads or minute 
cells; and even those which approach nearest 
the higher orders in complexity and beauty, are 
merely the most elegant of the numerous and 
monotonous tribes of the mosses and the ferns. 
The great constituent families of acotyledonous 
plants are filices or ferns, musci or mosses, lichens 
or minute parasites of trees and stones, hepatica 
or moulds and grassy threads on water, fungi or 
mushrooms, and alge or sea-weeds. But even 
the most minute, neglected, and seemingly in- 
ACOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. ACRE. 
significant of these classes, or of the genera which 
they comprise, are far from being useless in the 
economy of providence and of organic existence. 
“They serve to complete and to keep up the in- 
tegrity of the vegetable creation, whether it be 
by decomposing putrid and fecal matters, or by 
preparing a soil fit for vegetables of a higher 
order. They are scattered over all climates and 
all quarters of the world, replenishing both earth 
and sea with vegetable life, and ascending even 
into the regions of the air by the very levity of 
their seeds, spores, or bulbules, to be wafted on 
the winds, till, drenched with moisture, they de- 
scend again towards the earth, ready to cling to 
the soil that suits them, if it should be even the 
surface of the flinty rock, or to spread themselves 
over mountains of eternal snow, or to immerse 
themselves in the waters of the ocean. Thus 
many of the alge [lichens] at least, sow their 
seeds and thrive where no other plant would 
live. They grow up, come to maturity, and per- 
ish where they grow, forming, in process of years, 
a soil of some depth. First mosses, and then 
ferns, are found to follow in their train, leaving 
a soil deeper and richer still, till at last, in the 
revolution of ages, the very surface of the barren 
rock is covered with a soil capable of supporting | 
the loftiest trees." —Kerth’s Botanical Lexicon. 
ACRE. The standard measure of land through- 
out Great Britain and Ireland. The imperial 
acre, or English statute acre, comprises 4 roods ; 
one rood comprises 40 square perches ; one square 
perch comprises 30} square yards ; and one square 
yard comprises 9 square feet. Hence the lineal 
measure, whose squares constitute the fractions 
or subdivisions of the acre, is inversely expressed 
thus,—three feet make one yard, and 53 yards 
make one perch. 
The English standard acre, | 
now the imperial acre of Britain, is a square | 
raised from the basis of the chain of 66 feet or 
4 perches: ten of these squares forming the acre, | 
By the | 
act 5° Geo. IV. c. 74, the imperial acre is declared | 
which thus contains 4,840 square yards. 
the standard throughout the United Kingdom 
from and after May Ist, 1825. But the establish- | 
ment of the imperial acre as the standard or only | 
legal measure of land throughout the United King- 
dom, was afterwards, by 6° Geo. IV. ¢. 12, fixed for 
January 1, 1826; and it is still very far from being 
uniformly recognised in practice. The length of 
the linear perch, in the measure of most of Devon- 
shire and part of Somersetshire, is 5 yards instead 
of 54; in the measure of Cornwall, 6 yards; in 
that of Lancashire, 7 yards; in that of Cheshire 
and Staffordshire, 8 yards; and in that of the 
Isle of Purbeck and some parts of Devonshire, 15 
feet and 1 inch ;—and the acre, in all these cases, 
corresponds to the squaring of the perch, and 
differs in corresponding degrees from the impe- 
rial acre. In the tenantry fields of Wiltshire, 
and some parts of the adjacent counties, an acre 
formerly consisted of only 120 square perches or 
3 roods; and in many parts of Wales, the com- 
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