— 
ASARABACCA. 
a scramble in the market when brought down 
from the mountains. Yet one of the two spe- 
cies which produce it has been in Britain since 
1782, and does not seem to have particularly 
| challenged the notice of either gardener or gour- 
a 
_and long-continued nasal discharge. 
mand. The gum itself, especially when burning, 
is the most revoltingly fetid of all vegetable sub- 
stances, 
ASARABACCA,—botanically Asarwm. A genus 
of small, evergreen, hardy, herbaceous plants, of 
the Aristolochia tribe. All are inconspicuous, 
and grow to the height of only six or nine inches. 
Three species, the arum-leaved, the Canadian, 
and the sweet-scented, produce brown flowers, 
and have been introduced from respectively North 
America, Canada, and Virginia; and the common 
species, Asarwm Europeun, grows indigenously in 
the woods of England, and produces purple flowers 
‘in May. The roots of this indigenous species are 
thick, fleshy, and jointed, and have fibres from 
every part of their body; the leaves grow singly 
on short foot-stalks, arising immediately from 
the root ; and the flowers grow upon very short 
foot-stalks close to the ground, so as to be con- 
cealed beneath the leaves. The leaves have 
emetic, cathartic, and diuretic properties, and 
'are very powerfully sternutatory. A small pro- 
portion of the powdered leaves mixed with to- 
bacco snuff occasions violent sneezing; and a 
moderate dose drawn into the nostrils, on several 
successive nights at bed-time, occasions a copious 
“The pow- 
der of this herb,” said Miller in 1764, “ has been 
strongly recommended by the inhabitants of 
| Norfolk, for cattle troubled with the late raging 
distemper, which, if blown up their nostrils, will 
occasion a violent discharge from the head by 
the nostrils; and this, they have affirmed, has 
cured great numbers of cattle, which were at the 
last stage of the distemper.” 
ASCARIDES, or NeEepur-Worms. Small in- 
testinal worms in the horse. They have a needle- 
like form, with flattish heads; and some of them 
are white, others azure-coloured. They seem to 
make their lodgment in the upper part of the 
small intestines, near the stomach; but they 
often accumulate in the large intestines, and de- 
scend in hundreds to the rectum. They breed at 
all times of the year; and frequently when one 
brood is destroyed, another succeeds. They do 
not occasion any mortal disease, or even, in gen- 
eral, incapacitate a horse for his work ; yet they 
cause much pain and sickness, they impair the 
appetite and reduce the strength, they sometimes 
prey like an intermitting pest upon the constitu- 
tion, and they are always troublesome and very 
difficult to be exterminated. Even when a horse 
which is infested with them feeds heartily, and 
does his work tolerably well, he always looks lean 
and jaded, he often strikes his hind-feet against 
his belly, he frequently pauses in eating under a 
paroxysm of sickness or strong griping, and he 
ASCENT OF SAP. 253 
decided want of health. A smart purge in the 
stable sometimes brings away the ascarides in 
vast numbers; but an injection of linseed oil, or 
of a solution of aloes in warm water, is much 
more suitable and effective when they have ac- 
cumulated in the rectum.—Gvdson on the Diseases 
of Horses.— Youatt on the Horse. 
ASCENT OF SAP. The ascent of liquid in 
plants from the spongioles to the leaves. The 
liquid nutriments of plants, when imbibed from 
the soil by the absorbing organs, are designated 
sap or lymph; they appear to undergo some 
chemical change in the very process of absorp- 
tion, so as to possess a different nature in the 
plant from that which they possessed in the soil ; 
and they are immediately conveyed from the 
roots to the leaves, or to analogous organs in 
aphyllous plants, in order to undergo such fur- 
ther chemical change or complete elaboration as 
shall fit them to become portions of the fixed or 
permanent vegetable substance. 
The internal flow of sap in plants is familiar to 
the most common observers; and may readily be 
ascertained by wounding any of the more juicy 
trees or shrubs. If the trunk, branch, or upper 
root of a tree be cut or fractured in spring, 
whether by accident or by intention, the sap will 
immediately begin to be discharged in a stream | 
or trickling technically called bleeding; it will, 
in some instances, continue to flow out during | 
several days, or till the wound begins to be 
healed; and, after it stops, it may be made to 
commence a fresh discharge, simply by renewing | 
the wound. The bleeding of plants is particu- | 
larly conspicuous and abundant in the pruning | 
of vines and the piercing of sugar maples; yet, 
neither in these instances, nor in others in which 
it is copious, does it appear to occasion any seri- 
ous injury to the plant’s constitution or growth. 
Hven some individual vines which have been 
profusely pruned with the view of causing the 
most copious bleeding, have grown as vigorously 
and fruited as plentifully as if they had experi- 
enced the mere routine culture. The bleeding 
of plants is always most abundant about the time 
of the opening of the bud; it diminishes in copi- | 
ousness as the leaves expand and mature; and, 
in most deciduous perennial-stemmed plants, it 
cannot occur at the falling of the leaf or during 
the period of winter. Yet the internal flow of 
sap, at even the most dormant season, though in 
a very diminished degree compared to the ener- 
getic period of spring, is proved by the gradual | 
development of leaf-buds during winter, the re- 
tention and succulency of the leaves of evergreens 
throughout the year, the florification of mosses 
amidst the snows of December, the growth of 
the radical fibres, the succulent stems, and the 
juicy flower-buds of bulbous plants during the 
coldest season of the year, and the capability of 
palms, and other endogenous woody plants, to 
bleed in autumn and winter, as well as in sum- 
betrays other symptoms of serious uneasiness and ) mer and spring. | 
