CHINA-ASTER. 
mach soon after it is swallowed, increases the 
appetite, and acts powerfully on the kidneys.” 
The whole plant, including roots, stems, and 
leaves, dried, cut small, and decocted, is used. 
The spotted-leaved species, Chimophila maculata, 
grows to the same height, has the same medici- 
nal properties, and was introduced to Britain 
about the same period as the corymbose-flowered 
species; but it is readily distinguished by the 
whiteness of its flowers. 
CHINA-ASTER,—botanically Callistemma. A 
genus of hardy, elegant, annual flowering-plants, 
of the composite family. The garden species, 
Callistemma hortense, formerly called Aster chinen- 
sis, is a native of China, and was introduced 
thence to Britainin 1731. It usually has a height 
of about 20 inches, and blooms from July till the 
time of wintry frost. It ranks as a florist’s plant, 
and is everywhere cultivated as one of the con- 
spicuous beauties of the flower-garden. Its 
flowers are, in a large proportion of instances, 
more or less double; and they possess a very 
large disc, and appear like greatly magnified 
double daisies. Six well established varieties 
are recognised in systematic botany,—the normal 
plant, the red, the white, the variegated, the 
‘short-flowered, and the double; and while all are 
more or less variegated, the three last are emi- 
nently so, and the three first have as their pre- 
vailing colour respectively blue, red, and white. 
Seeds may be sown either on a hotbed very early 
in spring, or on a warm border in the latter part 
of April; andthe young plants, as soon as they have 
acquired five or six leaves, should be pricked out 
into beds or border-rows, and placed at distances 
from one another of about six inches. Two great 
defects characterize the China-aster, and occasion 
it to be totally disesteemed by fastidious florists, 
—the coarseness of its conformation, or want of 
delicacy in its texture, and the staring, hungry, 
vacant appearance of its single flowers.—The 
Indian species, Callistemma indica, formerly call- 
ed Aster indicus, was introduced to Britain in 
1820. It attains only two-thirds the height of 
the Chinese species, but competes with it in 
beauty, and resembles its normal plant in the 
colour of the flowers. The name callistemma 
signifies “the handsomest crown,” and alludes 
to the elegance of the large, expanded circular 
corolla. 
CHINA-ROSE. See Ross. 
CHINE. The spine of a horse, or ridge of a 
horse’s back; also the part of a hog’s carcase, 
containing the spine. | 
CHINEFELLON. Acute yheumatism in the 
loins of an ox, attended or followed by low fever. 
CHINESE-TREE. See Paony. 
CHINKED-CHINE. See Ancryzosrs. 
CHINQUAPIN. See Curstnut-TREE. 
CHIOCOCCA. See SnowBERRy. 
CHIONANTHUS. See Frince-TREE. 
CHIPPING. A virulent disease of the stomach 
It usually occurs when 
and bowels of chickens. 
CHIVES. 197 
the birds are three or four weeks old, and seems 
to be occasioned by indigestion, or by exposure 
to cold and wet. A chicken affected with it en- 
sconces in a corner, contracts itself into a lump- 
ish posture, expands or lifts erect all its feathers, 
utters a short and lugubrious chirp, refuses to 
eat, rapidly loses flesh, and, if unattended to, 
very speedily dies. The disease, in its earlier 
stages, is curable; but, when fully established, is 
always fatal. Chickens affected with it should 
be kept warm, gently purged, and fed with good 
thick gruel while ill, and with split grits when 
convalescent. ; 
CHIRITA. A genus of ornamental plants, of 
the gesneria tribe. The Chinese species, C. sin- 
ensis, was recently introduced from China by the 
London Horticultural Society. It is a dwarf, 
herbaceous, greenhouse plant, with very much of 
both the appearance and the habit of a gloxinia. 
Its leaves are large, oblong, almost oval, and 
hairy, and sit close to the soil; and its flowers 
rise in twos or threes, on short stems just above 
the foliage, are shaped nearly like the flowers of 
gloxinia or foxglove, and have a beautiful soft 
lilac colour, with a white throat. The plant is 
very easily cultivated in the cool part of a stove. 
CHIRONIA. A genus of ornamental, ever- 
green, Cape-of-Good-Hope undershrubs, of the gen- 
tian tribe. About a dozen species have been intro- 
duced to Britain; and a few others are known to 
botanists. The height of the introduced species 
varies from 1 foot to 34 feet; and the colour of 
the flowers of two is yellow, of one white, and of 
the others red or purple. The root of one of the 
best known is fibrous, and spreading: the stems 
are round, slightly ligneous, and of very soft 
texture; the branches proceed from all sides, and 
grow erect; the leaves are succulent, and an 
inch or more long, and the eighth part of an inch 
broad; and the flowers are produced at the ends 
of the branches, and have a tubulous form, but 
expand at the top like the flowers of periwinkle. 
CHIVES, or Crves,—botanically Allium schen- 
oprasum. A small, hardy, esculent, bulbous- 
rooted perennial plant, of the onion genus. It 
grows in close tufty bunches, to the height of 6 
or 7 inches, and carries inconspicuous flesh-col- 
oured flowers in May and June. It is found wild 
in the meadows and pastures of England; and is 
allowed a place, sometimes an unduly prominent 
one, in kitchen and cottage gardens. Its leaves 
and bulbous roots, but particularly the former, 
are used in salads, soups, and for the various | 
other purposes to which either young or full- 
grown onions are applied; and they are much 
esteemed on account at once of the delicacy of 
their flavour, the easiness of their cultivation, 
and the earliness and length of time of their 
being in season. Chives are propagated by sim- 
ple division of the tufts in which they grow; and 
they afterwards need no other culture than to be 
kept free from weeds. They may be propagated 
at any time between the end of January and the 
