486 
summit; its branches are alternate,—the upper 
ones nearly horizontal; its leaves are alternate, 
have a length of about two feet, stand upon leaf- 
stalks of from 10 to 12 inches in length, and con- 
sist each of three oblong ovate leaflets, with 
pointed extremities, glandular, and agreeably 
aromatic ; its flowers are funnel-shaped and five- 
petalled, and form terminal racemes of from three 
to six; and its fruit consists of five oval bivalve 
capsules, each containing a single seed. The 
plant was introduced to Britain about forty years 
ago, aS an ornament of our bark stoves; but it 
attains with us a very paltry height. Its bark 
was first introduced from Dominica in 1778, and 
continues to be imported in casks. Its odour is 
peculiar, but not strong; its taste is bitter, 
slightly aromatic, and enduringly hot and pun- 
gent in the throat; its chief chemical principles 
are resin, carbonate of ammonia, volatile oil, iga- 
sauric acid, a peculiar kind of extractive, and pro- 
bably some cinchonina; and its medicinal virtues 
are well established in cases of intermittent fever, 
dysentery, bilious diarrhea, hysteria, leucorrheea, 
dyspepsia, and general debility of the stomach. 
It is administered, in small doses, in a state of 
powder, of tincture, of watery extract, and of 
watery infusion. But a most deleterious sub- 
stitute for it, containing the narcotic principle 
brucia, is frequently met with in the market, and 
has been designated Angustura ferruginea, and 
may readily be distinguished by its greater weight 
and thickness, and by its warty and brownish- 
olive epidermis.—A dwarfish and very fragrant 
species of Bonplandia, called Galipea odoratissima, 
was recently introduced to our hothouses from 
Rio Janeiro—The name Bonplandia gemmiflora 
| is given by the Spanish botanist Cavanilles to a 
| tender ornamentalannual of the polemonium tribe, 
| known to other botanists as Caldasia heterophylla. 
BONUS HENRICUS. See Goosrroor. 
BOOK-KEEPING, See Farm-Accounts, 
BOOSE, or Boostne. A stall for cattle. A 
boose-stake or a boosing-stake is the post at the 
head of a stall, to which an ox or a cow is fastened. 
BORACIC ACID. See Boratss. 
BORAGE,—botanically Borago. A genus of 
herbaceous plants, forming the type of the natural 
order Loraginee. This order comprises twenty- 
six genera, and has growing in Britain about 280 
species, two of which are hardy ligneous, and 
about 194 hardy herbaceous. Most of the species 
have alternate exstipulate leaves, covered over 
with minute asperities ; and all have their flowers 
arranged in a gyrate manner previous to expand- 
ing,—each flower followed by four distinct little 
nuts or seeds. The type of the order, found in 
the common borage, is one of the truest types in 
Jussieuan botany, and represents both the pecu- 
| liar structure and the sensible properties of all 
the genera, and even of all the species; so that 
its insipid juice, and its covering of stiff white 
| hairs, are common to the whole order; and the 
_ latter property formerly occasioned all the spe- 
bem 
BOOSH. BORAGE. | 
cies to be designated asperifolie or rough-leaved. 
Some are mere weeds; others, and these not a 
few, are eminently beautiful ; most are muci- 
laginous and emollient ; several contain nitre; 
and a considerable number are employed, in vari- 
ous countries of the world as well as in our own, 
for imparting a red colour by dyeing. 
The borage genus comprises seven species, six 
of which are cultivated in Great Britain. The 
common borage, Borago officinalis, grows wild | 
among rubbish in England, and is a well known 
annual plant in many, perhaps most, of our gar- | 
dens. Its tops and its young leaves are used as 
a salad, or boiled as a pot herb, or put into negus 
or cold tankards. The English peasantry re- 
gard the leaves and flowers, when warmed up in 
beer, as a cooling cordial and opening medicine; 
and they also employ them in some places as an 
ingredient in brewing. Its stems are round, 
juicy, thick, between two and three feet high, 
and so beset with small stiff hairs as to be almost 
prickly to the touch; its leayes are large, broad, 
rough, wrinkled, and hairy; its flowers are five- 
petalled, have a bright blue colour, and bloom 
from May till September ; and its seeds are small, | 
oval, and black, with generally a speck of white 
at their lower end. If permitted to sow itself, it 
will come up in plenty, and grow with vigour, 
in the manner of a weed or wild plant. But it 
may be artificially sown, either in spring or in 
autumn, on any spot of open ground where it is | 
wished to grow to maturity ; and when the 
plants have attained a little strength, they may 
be cleared of all weeds, and thinned out to dis- 
tances of six or eight inches. Plants raised in 
autumn flower in May; plants raised in early 
spring flower in June; and when the longest | 
possible succession of fresh plants is desired, a | 
second sowing or even a third may be made in | 
spring. But late spring-sowings must be made 
on a shady border; and, if the season should 
prove dry, they must be followed by frequent 
waterings. Three varieties of the common bor- 
age are pretty constant from seed, one with 
white, another with red, and a third with varie- 
gated flowers; but only the first of these, Borago | 
officinalis albiflora, can be considered permanent. | 
A writer in a Bavarian Weekly Journal, recom- | 
mends that common borage should be artificially | 
sown in fields, and, when full-grown, ploughed 
into the ground as manure; he says that he has, 
by long experience, proved the excellence of its 
manurial character; he ascribes this excellence 
principally to its containing so large a propor- 
tion of soda and other salts; and he remarks 
that it may be sown in April, and ploughed 
down in August in time to be followed by wheat. 
But in ‘so’ completely inland a country as Bavaria, 
where saline vapours must be few and attenuated, 
we cannot understand how borage should return 
to the soil much more saline matter than it ex- 
tracts from it; and even in seaboard districts, 
where saline vapours are abundant, we should be 
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