734 CATHARTIN. 
mon inhabitation; some use their silken thread 
as cordage for rolling up large leaves of plants, 
and binding them into a sort of natural tents ; 
and some—the most celebrated of which are the 
silkworm caterpillars—spin one thread of enor- 
mous length into an enveloping cocoon for pro- 
tection of the pupa transmutation. See the ar- 
ticles Cocoon and Curysatis. 
Most species of caterpillars are vegetable feed- 
ers, and inflict more or less injury upon useful 
vegetation ; a few, as the galleriz, devour lard, 
wax, and other fatty substances; and some, as 
the caterpillars of the clothes’-moth, feed upon 
cloth, furs, and other matters of animal origin. 
The little green tortrix, which infests the oak, 
sometimes strips that tree of nearly all its foliage ; 
the common garden caterpillars make great de- 
vastation upon the leaves of cabbages, goose- 
| berry-bushes, and other garden plants; and 
numerous other species live wholly upon foliage, 
and either damage or destroy vegetables by de- 
vouring their leaves. Some species feed upon 
roots, seeds, buds, and flowers; and a few feed 
upon the ligneous parts of trees, boring through 
their stems, and sometimes completely destroying 
their young shoots. Some restrict themselves to 
one kind of plant; and others, as the caterpillars 
of the garden tiger-moth, feed upon many differ- 
ent kinds. Many feed by night; but the greater 
| number feed by day. 
CATHARTIN. The active principle, or pe- 
culiar chemical principle, of senna. It is saline, 
uncrystallizable, deliquescent, reddish yellow, 
bitterly nauseous, and of a peculiar odour. It is 
soluble in either alcohol or water, but not in 
ether; and its aqueous solution is precipitated 
by the infusion of galls or the subacetate of lead. 
Its medicinal properties are those of a concentra- 
ted infusion of senwa leaves; and when this in- 
fusion is evaporated to dryness and burnt, it 
yields potash, sulphate of potash, magnesia, silica, 
and carbonate of lime. See the article Senna. 
CATHARTOCARPUS. A genus of evergreen, 
medicinal, tropical trees and shrubs, of the cees- 
alpinia division of the leguminous family. Eight 
species have been introduced to Great Britain ; 
and five or six other species are known to botan- 
ists. The best known species, C. fistula, was for- 
merly classed as a cassia, and has been described 
in our article Cassta. Three of the other intro- 
duced species, Humboldt’s, Roxburgh’s, and the 
Brazilian, also were formerly included in the 
genus cassia; and the first is from the Caraccas, 
and grows forty feet high,—the second is from 
India, and grows twenty feet high,—and the! 
third is from South America, and grows thirty 
feet high. The other introduced species are from 
Java, Trinidad, Mexico, and Sierra Leone; and 
the first has usually a height of about twelve 
feet, and each of the others about twenty feet. 
The name cathartocarpus means “ purging fruit,” 
and alludes to the medicinal properties of the 
legumes. 
florets resembling catkins; and they abound in 
CAT’S TAIL. 
CATKIN. An assemblage of small, incom- 
plete, scale-like flowers, arranged upon a rachis, 
and growing pendulously, so as to have an ap- 
pearance somewhat like a cat’s tail. 
examples of it occur in the inflorescence of wil- 
lows and poplars. 
destitute of both calyx and corolla, but they have 
a scale-like bract which attaches them to the 
rachis or common elongated receptacle. 
catkin is the characteristic of the large division 
of trees called amentaceous. 
Amentacnous TREES. 
Familiar 
The flowers of a catkin are 
The 
See the article 
CATMINT,—botanically WVepeta. A genus of 
herbaceous plants, of the lip- flowered family. 
The common species, Vepeta cataria, grows wild 
on road sides, borders of fields, and moist waste 
grounds, in Great Britain. 
its stem is square, hoary, and between two and 
three feet high; its leaves are broad, slightly in- 
dented on their edge, deeply whitish on their 
under surface, and whitish green on their upper 
surface; and its flowers grow in axillary cymes 
on different parts of the stem, and are white in 
colour, and appear from July till September. 
This plant has a strong and not very agreeable 
odour; and, on account of its being greatly rel- 
ished for both taste and odour by cats, it has 
given the name of catmint to the whole genus. 
About forty species of catmint have been intro- 
duced to Britain from foreign countries, particu- 
larly from those between the Levant and Siberia ; 
Its root is perennial ; 
and, with the exception of one hardy annual, and 
one tender biennial, all are hardy, perennial- 
rooted herbs. Nearly twenty of these species are 
ornamental; and a few of the others are curious; 
but none possess any noticeable economical value. 
CAT’S EAR,—botanically Hypocheris. A ge- 
nus of hardy herbaceous plants, of the succory 
division of the composite order. The smooth spe- 
cies, H. glabra, is an uninteresting, annual, yel- 
low-flowering, one-foot-high weed of the sandy 
heaths of Britain. 
long-rooted species, H. maculata and H. radicata, 
are perennial-rooted, yellow-flowering weeds, the 
former of the chalky hills of England, and the 
latter of the meadows and pastures of Great Bri- 
tain; but both are now assigned to the new genus 
achyrophorus,—a name which signifies “ the 
bearer of chaff.” Hight or nine species of cat’s 
ear have been brought to Britain from foreign 
countries; but they possess little or no interest. 
The spotted-leaved and the 
CAT’S TAIL,—botanically Zypha. A genus 
of hardy, aquatic, reed-like plants, forming, with 
the bur-reeds, the natural order typhine. The 
plants of this order have strong creeping roots, 
and long soft or round prickly assemblages of 
ditches and lakes in very many parts of the world. 
Three species of the genus typha, of respectively 
two, four, and six feet in height, inhabit the 
ditches, pools, and marshes of Britain, and carry 
brown flowers in July; and all are used, in the 
manner of reeds, for various economical a 
