Order Cxxxix
ATHEROSPERMEÆ.
Allied to the last in sensible and botanical qualities: they are shrubs, natives of America and New Holland, of which little is known either to gardeners or botanists. 2103 Peúmus Pers.
ORDER CXL.
EMPETREÆ.
Dwarf heath-like shrubs, with obscure flowers and berries, natives of Europe and North America. 2045 Empétrum L.
ORDER CXLI.
URTICEÆ.
Few are the objects in this order deserving the care of the cultivator; it is rather extraordinary, however, that those few are abundantly so. Among worthless weeds and shabby half herbaceous shrubs, some of which are covered with rough points, and others defended by stinging hairs, we find the fig, the mulberry, the hemp, the hop, and the bread-fruit, all objects of the first consequence to the world. Here also is placed the half fabulous Upas, with which lying travellers and credulous naturalists have long deluded Europe. The Upas tree is now known to be the Antiáris toxicária, the inspissated juice of which is indeed a frightful poison, but the baneful effects of whose branches are purely imaginary. Similar, though inferior, qualities have been found to exist in Fícus toxicária, and some of the Artocarpuses. The root of the black mulberry is bitter, acrid, and purgative; of Dorstenia brasiliensis, emetic; of D. contrayérba, bitter, aromatic, hot, and stimulant. A decoction, or the dried leaves, of hemp, is eminently narcotic, and forms the basis of the well known intoxicating Turkish drug called Bang or Haschisch. The tenacious nature of the fibres of the known intoxicating Turkish drug called Bang or Haschisch. The tenacious nature of the fibres of the hemp is also found in other plants of the order, especially Urtica cannabína, the hop, the bread-fruit tree, the common stinging-nettle, and others. 1962 Urtica W. 1961 Pílea Lindl. 2137 Parietària W. 1960 Bœhméria W. 933 Forskóhlea W. 1993 Thelýgonum W. 2059 Broussonétia W. 2073 Cánnabis W. 2074 Húmulus W. 2167 Fícus W. 2043 Cecrópia W. 1969 Maclúra Nutt. 1959 Mórus W. 1935 Artocárpus W 257 Dorsténia W.
ORDER CXLII.
AMENTACEE 75 Gunnéra W. 2158 Brósimum W. 1973 Franzéria Cav. 2063 Tróphis W. 2050 Stilágo IW.
Here is the group in which all the timber trees of Europe, and most of those of all cold countries, are stationed. Every genus consists of plants important to the wants of man. The alder, the birch, the willow, the poplar, the oak, the chesnut, the hornbeam, and the plane, are all collected in this place, to which they have been brought by the coincidence of similar fructification existing in all of them. This similarity depends upon their producing flowers of one sex only, the males of which are always arrayed in catkins, of which the flowers are destitute of calyx or corolla, in the place of which is produced a single scale. Their bark is furnished with an astringent principle, which has rendered them valuable either for staining black, as in the alder and the oak gall; or for tanning, as in the oak; or as febrifuges, as the alder, the birch, the oak, most of the willows, and also Populus tremuloides, which is well known in North America as a tonic and stomachic febrifuge. The substance called tacamahaca was formerly supposed to be produced by some of the poplars, but it is now believed to be obtained from a very different plant, Fagára octándra. The fruit of many it is now believed to be obtained from a very different plant, Fagára octándra. The fruit of many Amentáceæ contains a considerable proportion of fæcula, which renders it fit for the food of man and other animals, as the acorns of the oak, the mast of birch, the nut of Castánea and Corylus, &c. 1955 A'lnus W. 1956 Bétula W. 2001 Liquidámbar W. 2002 Plátanus W. 2042 Sálix W. 2003 Salisbúria L. T. 1995 O'strya W. 1996 Carpinus W. 1994 Castánea W. 1997 Fágus W. 1998 Córylus W. 2000 Quércus W. 2087 Pópulus W.
ULMACEÆ.
ORDER CXLIII.
Many of the observations upon the last order are also applicable to this, which differs rather in certain technical characters, than in any arrangement of nature. The elm is its representative, from which the others only slightly differ. 616 Planéra Mich. 615 U'lmus L. 2145 Céltis W.