792 CHERRY. 
CHERVIL. 
mological Magazine—Watson’s Forester’s Manual. | also popularly given to a curious, twining, tropi- 
—The Gardener's Magazine—Marshall on Plant- | cal annual of the heartseed genus, Cardiospermum 
ing—The Magazine of Domestic Economy —Niec- 
ol’s Planter’s Kalendar. 
CHERRY (Winter), —botanically Physalis. 
A genus of plants of the nightshade tribe. The 
common or officinal species, Physalis Alkekengi, 
is a hardy, perennial-rooted herb. It grows na- 
turally in Spain and Italy, but was introduced 
to Britain about the middle of the 16th century, 
and has ever since been cultivated in our gar- 
dens. Its roots, if unrestrained, creep to a great 
distance ; its stems are numerous, and rise to the 
height of 12 or 14 inches; its leaves are dark 
green, and stand on long footstalks, but are very 
variously shaped, some being angular and ob- 
tuse, and others oblong and acute; its flowers 
are produced on slender footstalks from the wings 
of the stems, have a white colour, and appear 
from July till September ; and its fruit are round 
berries about the size of small cherries, soft, 
pulpy, full of flat kidney-shaped seeds, and en- 
closed in an inflated husk or bladder. The husk 
is at first green, but afterwards becomes red, 
opens, and discloses the cherry-like fruit; and 
during this latter process, or at the period of au- 
tumnal ripening, the plant has a very pretty 
appearance. The berry has slightly diuretic pro- 
perties, and has been used in medicine.—Jac- 
quin’s species, Physalis Jacquint, is a hardy, yel- 
low-flowered, perennial-rooted, North American 
herb, of about the same height as the preceding 
| species. It ranks as an esculent.—The Peruvian 
species, Physalis Peruviana, is a greenhouse, ever- 
green, South American undershrub. Its stem 
grows 18 inches high; its flowers are white, and 
bloom from April till October; and its fruit is 
so far relished as to give the plant the status of 
a fruit-shrub.—The eatable species, Physalis edu- 
fis, is an evergreen, tropical, yellow-flowered, 
two-feet-high herb of South America; and is 
cultivated, in its native country, as an eséffesit, 
—The flexuose species, Physalis flexuosa, is an 
evergreen, Indian, undershrub; and was intro- 
duced to Britain about the middle of last cen- 
tury. It grows two feet high, and carries green- 
ish-yellow flowers in July and August. Its root 
is supposed by the Hindoo physicians to possess 
cooling, deobstruent, and diuretic properties — 
The somniferous species, P. somnifera, is an ever- 
green, two-feet-high, undershrub from Mexico. 
—The frutescent and the awned species, P. frw- 
tescens and P. aristata, are evergreen, poisonous, 
yellow-flowered shrubs, of five feet in height, the 
former from Spain, and the latter from the Ca- 
naries.—The arborescent species, P. arborescens, 
is an ornamental, evergreen, yellow-flowered un- 
| dershrub of the Cape of Good Hope——Upwards 
of thirty other species are known to botanists; 
and about twenty of these have been introduced 
to Britain; but scarcely any of them challenge 
attention, and the greater number are weedy, 
hardy, annuals.—The name of winter cherry is 
Halicacabum. Its leaves are broad, lanceolated, 
and subdivided, and are used on the Malabar 
coast for pulmonic complaints; and its root is 
mucilaginous and somewhat nauseous, and is 
used, in many parts of India, as an aperient and 
an antibilious medicine. ) 
CHERVIL, —botanically Cherophyllum. <A 
genus of herbaceous plants, of the umbelliferous 
family. The cultivated species, Cherophyllum 
sativum—called by Linneeus Scandix cerefolium, 
and by some of theymost recent remodellers of 
systematic botany.A nithgiscus sativa—is a hardy, 
native annual of, Great Britain. It grows wild 
on banks, hedges, and: waste grounds; and has 
long been cultivated in gardens, as an aromatic, 
pot, and salad herb. Its stem rises to the height 
of about 20 inches; its flowers are white and 
bitter ; and its seeds are smooth, furrowed, and 
comparatively large. It soon runs to seed, and, 
when wanted for more than a week or two, re- 
quires to be sown in long-succession. Jt may be 
sown from April till September, for summer and 
autumn use; and, in the latter part of autumn, 
to stand through the winter. The only full or 
even sure crops of it are those sown in autumn, 
from newly ripened seed. It is not fastidious as 
to soil, and may be raised in drills of from 6 to 
9 inches asunder. It was much used for culinary 
‘purposes by the ancients, and continues to be 
extensively used in salads by the French and in 
soups by the Dutch; but it is now comparatively 
little used in Britain. Some poisonous umbel- 
liferous plants are very apt to be mistaken for | 
it; so that no chervil should be used but such 
as is specially cultivated. | 
The wood or wild species, Cherophyllum syl- |. 
vestre—now sometimes called Anthriscus sylves- 
trisand popularly smooth cow parsley—is a per- 
6 anial’rooted herbaceous weed of British hedges, 
orchards, and pastures. Its root is fusiform and 
somewhat milky; its stem is striated, and about 
3 feet high; and its flowers are snowy white, 
and bloom in May and June, and are a fine na- 
tural ornament of our hedges and the margins 
of our fields. The whole plant has an agreeable 
flavour, somewhat like that of carrots, and is 
eaten by rabbits, asses, cows, and other animals, 
and serves both to please the human eye with its 
beauty, and to prove to the farmer the fertility 
of the soil on which it grows; yet, economically 
viewed, it is altogether a weed, and ought to be 
exterminated from every pasture-field in spring. 
—The giddy species, Cherophyllum temulum, is a 
biennial, white-flowered, three-feet-high weed of 
the same situations as the preceding species.— 
Four hardy, perennial-rooted, herbaceous species, 
the fine-leaved from the south of Europe, the 
aromatic from Germany, and the Canadian and 
Clayton’s from North America, are sometimes 
grown in our gardens as ornamental plants. Up- 
wards of 20 other species are known to botan- 
