CALTHA. See Marsu Martieoup. . 
CALTROPS,—botanically 7ridulus. A genus 
of trailing plants, of the bean-caper tribe. The 
earthy species, Oaltrops terrestris, is a common 
annual weed of Italy, Spain, and the south of 
France; and was introduced to Britain as a cu- 
riosity toward the close of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. It appears, beyond doubt, to be the plant 
mentioned in the Georgics of Virgil, under the 
name of tribulus; and it takes its English name 
of caltrops from the resemblance of its capsules 
to the calcitrapa or dangerous four-spined instru- 
ment which the ancients threw in the way of 
enemies, to annoy and impede their cavalry. It 
|_.grows among corn, and on most arable land, in 
its native countries; and gives great trouble to 
cattle, by wounding their feet with the strong 
prickles of its capsules. Its root is slender and 
fibrous; its stems are slender and hairy, and rise 
in groups of four or five from each root, and creep 
| flat along the ground to the length of about fif- 
_ teen or eighteen inches; its leaves are pinnate, 
|| each being composed of six pairs of narrow, hairy 
folioles, and they are produced from the joints of 
the stems; its flowers comprise five broad, ob- 
tuse, open, yellow petals, and are produced on 
short footstalks from the wings of the stems, and 
appear in June and July; and its capsules are 
roundish, five-cornered, and prickly, and divided 
into five parts, each of which has a transverse 
cell containing one or two seeds. The leaves of 
either this species or Zribulus lanuginosus, are 
employed, by some pharmaceutists, as a diuretic. 
Five other annual species, all more or less ten- 
| | der, have been introduced from Georgia, Jamaica, 
| Guinea, Thibet, and India; an evergreen, peren- 
|| nial species, Tribulus cistoides, has been introduced 
| from South America; and about a dozen other 
|| species have been described. 
CALTROPS (WatEr),—botanically Zrapa. A 
| genus of floating aquatic plants, of the frog-bit 
tribe. Four genera have heen introduced to 
Great Britain,—7. natans from continental EKu- 
rope, 7’. bicornis from China, and 7’. bispinosa and 
LT. quadrispinosa from India; and all these pro- 
duce white or whitish flowers from June till Au- 
gust, and are cultivated for useful purposes in 
their native countries. “TT. natans,” says Lou- 
- don, “is a curious aquatic, with long, brown and 
| 
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f CSC a Le SR RE 
656 CALTROPS. 
green roots and floating leaves, with petioles in- 
flated into a tumour, as in the marine alge. 
The seed is larger than the kernel of the filbert, 
with two cotyledons, one large, and the other very 
small, and not increasing in size during the ger- 
mination. Hence, Geertner considers this plant 
like the Nelumbium, as in a sort of middle state 
between the monocotyledonez and the dicotyle- 
dones. The nuts are farinaceous, and are 
esteemed nourishing and pectoral. ‘The, skin 
with the spines being removed, there is a white 
| sweet kernel within, something like a chestnut. 
They are sold in the market at Venice under the 
name of Jesuits’ nuts. ‘They are also much eaten 
CALYCANTHUS. 
in Switzerland and the south of France. Some 
of the canals at Versailles are covered with the 
plant; and Neill informs us, that the nuts are 
sometimes served up like chestnuts. Pliny says 
that the Thracians made them into bread; and 
Thunberg states that they (the seed of Trapa bi- 
cornis) are commonly put into broth in Japan. 
T. bicornis is cultivated by the Chinese in marshes; 
and the nuts used as food.” 
CALUMBA-ROOT, or CotumBo-Roor. The 
dried and medicinal root of the. Coceulus palma- 
tus, a plant of the moon-seed tribe. . This plant 
abounds in the forests of south-eastern Africa ; 
its root is perennial, ramose, and fusiformly tu- 
berous; its stem is annual, round, hairy, and 
about the thickness of a goose-quill; its leaves 
stand alternately, at great distances, and on round | 
hairy footstalks, and are five-lobed and five- 
nerved; and its male flowers grow in axillary, | 
compound racemes, and comprise six small, cunei- | 
form, fleshy petals. Only the offsets of the roots 
are used in commerce and medicine; and these 
are dug up in March, dried, and sent from Mo- 
zambique to Tranquebar, and from Tranquebar | 
to Europe. The bark of the offsets is thick, ex- | 
ternally olive brown, and internally bright yel- 
low; and the part enclosed by the bark has a pale 
brownish colour, and a somewhat spongy texture. 
The roots as imported are often much worm- 
eaten; and the pieces freest from worm-holes, 
heaviest, and of the brightest colour, are the 
best. They have a bitter taste, and a slightly | 
aromatic odour; and they break with a starchy 
fracture, and are easily pulverized. They are 
employed by the Africans of Mozambique as a 
remedy for venereal diseases; by the Chinese, as 
an aphrodisiac ; and by the physicians of our own 
country, as an antiseptic and a tonic, in certain 
diarrhceas, in cholera, in bilious remittent fever, 
in phthisis, in hectic fever, in mesenteric fever, 
and in dyspepsia. A peculiar proximate prin- 
ciple, called calumbine, is obtainable from the 
roots; and is inodorous, extremely bitter, nei- | 
ther acidulous nor alkaline, and scarcely soluble 
in either water or alcohol. The roots of white 
bryony, tinged yellow with the tincture of ca- 
lumba, are said to be often substituted in com- 
merce for calumba roots. 
CALVES’ SNOUT. See Snappracon. 
CALVING. See Parturition and Aporrion. 
CALX. See Cancrnation. 
CALYCANTHUS. A genus of ornamental | 
shrubs, of the order Calycanthez. This order 
comprises only the genera calycanthus and chi- 
monanthus. Not more than eight or nine species | 
of it exist in Britain; and all these are hardy, 
early flowering, odoriferous shrubs of North 
America and Japan. They differ from species of 
the rose and pomegranate tribes in wanting pe- 
tals, and in having numerous divisions of the 
calyx,—from rose plants also in the form of the 
embryo, and from pomegranate plants in the 
imbrication of the calyx, The genus Calycan- 
a 
2 
