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Some species of Aristolochia, such as the A. serpentaria of North America, are supposed to act as specifics in the cure of snakebites; and the A. indica is the plant to which the ichneumon is popularly believed to resort as an antidote when bitten ; but it is probable that the use of any particular plant by the snake-charmers is a pretence, or rather a delusion, the reptile being overpowered by the resolute action of the operator , and not by the influence of any secondary appliance.

Hence has probably arisen the long list of plants, such as the Ophioxylon serpentinum and Ophiorhiza mungos, the Aristolochia Indica, the Mimosa octandria, and others, each of which has been asserted to be the ichneumon's specific; whilst their multiplicity is demonstrative of the non-existence of any one in particular on which the animal relies as an antidote.

Take five drachms each of agaric, aristolochia, and juice of horehound; six drachma each of rhubarb, spikenard, aniseed, guidanum, asafoetida, mallow-root, gentian, of the three peppers and of liquorice: make an electuary with honey, and take three drachms for a dose.

His favorite prescription for a tooth powder, while more elaborate, resembles to such an extent, at least some, if not indeed most of those, that are used at the present time, that it seems worth while giving his directions for it. He took equal parts of cuttle bone, small white sea-shells, pumice stone, burnt stag's horn, nitre, alum, rock salt, burnt roots of iris, aristolochia, and reeds.

One appears to be a bit of the stem of an Aristolochia; the other is so dried as to render its identification difficult, but it resembles the quadrangular stem of a jungle vine.

Upon the shady banks of the Madelina there grows a climbing plant which the botanists call Aristolochia, the flowers of which are four feet in circumference, and children amuse themselves with covering their heads with them as hats.

On the more level ground were the usual weeds; Ipomoeas with white and purple flowers, Bignonias, Echites, and Allamandas, with yellow ones, scrambled and tumbled everywhere; and, if not just there, then often enough elsewhere, might be seen a single Aristolochia scrambling up a low tree, from which hung, amid round leaves, huge flowers shaped like a great helmet with a ladle at the lower lip, a foot or more across, of purplish colour, spotted like a toad, and about as fragrant as a dead dog.

They are very pleasing when used to cover fences, low screens, and trellises, or when trained along the railing of the veranda. The Kudzu Vine is of wonderful rapidity of growth, and will be found a good substitute for a hardy vine about piazzas and porches. Aristolochia, or Dutchman's Pipe, is a hardy vine of more than ordinary merit.

From the simplest and regular types of flowers, as in the buttercup, we pass on to more and more involved and unsymmetrical forms, as the columbine, monk's-hood, larkspur, aristolochia, and thus finally to the most highly specialized or involved forms of all, as seen in the orchid the multifarious, multiversant orchid; the beautiful orchid; the ugly orchid; the fragrant orchid; the fetid orchid; the graceful, homely, grotesque, uncanny, mimetic, and, until the year 1859, the absolutely non-committal and inexplicable flower; the blossom which had waited through the ages for Darwin, its chosen interpreter, ere she yielded her secret to humanity.

In after years, however, I was enabled to classify his "charm," which was no other than the Aristolochia serpentaria a species closely allied to the "bejuco de guaco," that alexipharmic rendered so celebrated by the pens of Mutis and Humboldt.