United States or Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Faces were turned toward one another, black sleeves stole behind waists adorned with bunches of asclepias, a childish face laughed over a fruit ice, and the dessert at the level of the guests' lips encompassed the cloth with animation, bright colors, and light. Ah, yes! Risler was very happy. Except his brother Frantz, everybody he loved was there.
Both the leaves and the stem of this plant emit a highly poisonous milk, that exudes from the bark when cut or bruised; the least drop of this will cause total blindness, if in contact with the eye. I have seen several instances of acute ophthalmia that have terminated in loss of sight from the accidental rubbing of the eye with the hand when engaged in cutting firewood from the asclepias.
You are right, this time again there is nothing for me to do but to be patient; but when I have fulfilled the duties here, which I undertook, and am at home again, I will offer a great sacrifice to Asclepias and Hygiea, like a person recovered from a severe illness; and one thing I know: that I would rather be a poor girl, grinding at a mill, than change with this rich and adored queen who, in order to enjoy her life to the utmost, carelessly and restlessly hurries past all that our mortal lot has best to offer.
Other similar cases could be given; for instance in plants, the very curious contrivance of a mass of pollen-grains, borne on a foot-stalk with an adhesive gland, is apparently the same in Orchis and Asclepias, genera almost as remote as is possible among flowering plants; but here again the parts are not homologous.
There the Hig, an aloetic plant with a point so hard and sharp that horses cannot cross ground where it grows, stood in bunches like the largest and stiffest of rushes. Senna sprang spontaneously on the banks, and the gigantic Ushr or Asclepias shed its bloom upon the stones and pebbles of the bed.
Here may also be found the coarse-haired Asclepias tuberosa, with fiery red umbels, the strong-scented Monarda fistulosa, and an umbelliferous plant, the grass-like, spiculated leaves of which recall to mind the Southern Agaves, the Eryngo. Among these children of Nature rises the civilized plant, the Indian Corn, with its stalks nearly twelve feet high."
Burman relates that, in the latter country, when cow's milk is wanting, the milk of this asclepias is used; and that the ailments commonly prepared with animal milk are boiled with its leaves. It may be possible, as Decandolle has well observed, that the natives employ only the juice that flows from the young plant, at a period when the acrid principle is not yet developed.
Other species frequent the reeds, and the surface of the water is covered with geese of different kinds, among which is that whose head bears a fleshy tubercle like that of the cassowary. The fishing nets are made of date leaves; their upper edge is furnished, instead of cork, with pieces of the light wood of the Asclepias. The sails of the canoes are made of cotton.
She completed the nest in about a weeks time, without any aid from her mate, who indeed appeared but seldom in her company and was now become nearly silent. For fibrous materials she broke, hackled, and gathered the flax of the asclepias and hibiscus stalks, tearing off long strings and flying with them to the scene of her labors.
She simply took a walk on the mesa of the Bird, Ziro kauash. She hoped also to gather some useful plants, such as the shkoa, a spinach-like vegetable; asclepias; apotz, a fever-medicine of the genus artemesia, and many other medicinal herbs known to the Indian and used by him.
Word Of The Day