Flora Medica

PTARMICA.PTARMICA.Involucre campanulate, with the scales brown and scarious atthe edge. Receptacle flat, or scarcely convex, broad, paleaceous.Ligulae 5-20, flat, expanded, much longer than the involucre.Achaenia bald, obcompressed ;the outer often somewhatwinged at the edge. DC.928. P. vulgaris Blackw. herb. t. 256. DC. prodr. vi. 23.Achillea Ptarmica Linn, sp.pl 1266. Eng. Bot. t. 757. Fl.Lond. t. 60. Smith Eng. Fl. iii. 460. Hedges and thicketsin moist places in Europe, Siberia, and North America. (Sneezewort.)Root creeping widely, difficult of extirpation where the soil is moist.Stems upright, about 2 feet high, angular, smooth, hollow, leafy, withsmall axillary rudiments of branches ; corymbose at the top. Leavessessile, linear, or slightly lanceolate, acute, closely very minutely andsharply serrated, with bristly teeth ;smooth on both sides, of a darksomewhat glaucous green. Flower-heads milk-white in the disk aswell as the radius, larger than in most of the genus, and with a greaternumber of ligulate florets. A double variety, whose disk consists entirelyof such, is frequent in country gardens. Involucre rather hemispherical.Achaenia compressed, dilated at the edges, but not crownedat the top. The whole plant is pungent, provoking a flow of saliva.Its dried leaves produce sneezing, but this is thought to be owing totheir little sharp marginal teeth. Smith.SANTOLINA.Heads many-flowered either ;homogamous or heterogamous.Florets of the ray few, somewhat ligulate, by abortion ? Re-.ceptacle convex, somewhat hemispherical, covered with oblongsomewhat embracing paleae. Involucre usually campanulate,with imbricated close-pressed scales. Tube of the corolla usuallyextended into a ring or hood surrounding the apex of theovary. Achaenium oblong, quadrangular, quite smooth, and bald.DC.929. S. fragrantissima Forsk. descr. 14-7. Vahl. i.symb. 70.Del.fl. cegypt. 119. t. 42. f. 3. Egypt, Palestine, and betweenBagdad and Aleppo.A small spreading shrub about a foot high, with the habit of Rutafruticulosa; the branches tomentose and corymbose at the ends.Leaves ovate or oblong, with callous serratures, sessile, somewhatcordate, dotted; the young ones shaggy. Corymbs many-headed.Involucre ovate, downy, white. Florets yellow.Paleae tomentose atthe apex. Tube of the corolla slender, not drawn down over the neckof the ovary. The flower-heads are extremely fragrant when dry, andare sold in the shops of Cairo as a substitute for Chamomile, under thename of Babouny or Zeysoum. Forskahl says the fresh juice of theplant isapplied in affections of the eyes (oculis dolentibus).461