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The properties of Stramonium, which has been so much recommended for curing asthma, consist pricipally in the aroma, which is only to be preserved in a similar manner: and I have found from experience, that if the leaves are separated from the plant in a manner similar to that of tobacco, and the rest of the plant, noth roots, stalks, and seed-vessels, be slit and sufficiently dried in the sun or in an oven, and the whole fermented together, a very different article is the produce than what it is when dried in the usual way, and left entirely to the chance influence of the atmosphere.
I will point out a few which have come under my own observation, convinced as I am that the time will come when this hardy weed, with its golden flowers and curious seed-vessels, which form a constant plaything to the little children rolling about and luxuriating among the grass, in the sunny month of May, will be transplanted into our gardens, and tended with due care.
She sat one day on a rock, holding the sculptured leaves and massive seed-vessels of some glorious plant that the Kashmiris believe has magic virtues hidden in the seeds of pure rose embedded in the white down. "If you fast for three days and eat nine of these in the Night of No Moon, you can rise on the air light as thistledown and stand on the peak of Haramoukh.
The Phantom Bouquet; a Popular Treatise on the Art of skeletonizing Leaves and Seed-Vessels, and adapting them to embellish the Home of Taste. By Edward Parrish, Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, etc. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 47. 75 cts.
Then there is "Our Lady's comb," with its long, fragile seed-vessels resembling the teeth of a comb, while the cowslip is "Our Lady's bunch of keys." In France, the digitalis supplies her with gloves, and in days gone by the Convallaria polygonatum was the "Lady's seal."
At this time the men generally complained of disordered bowels and sore eyes, but I attributed both to the weather, and to the annoyance of the flies and mosquitos. The seeds were ripening fast along the banks of the creek, and we collected as many varieties as we could; but they matured so rapidly, and the seed-vessels burst so suddenly that we had to watch them.
The country round Sa-masam is full of small hills but clear of wood, and mostly pasture ground for their cattle, of which they have great abundance. I met with nothing remarkable here excepting a prickly shrub called by the natives Andalimon, the seed-vessels and leaves of which have a very agreeable spicy taste, and are used by them in their curries. July 10th.
This plant bears a fruit, in shape like an artichoke, in which a number of seed-vessels are packed: these contain a pleasant sweet pulp, here much esteemed. I saw at Low's Harbour the Chilotans making chichi, or cider, with this fruit: so true is it, as Humboldt remarks, that almost everywhere man finds means of preparing some kind of beverage from the vegetable kingdom.
The rocky ridges were occupied by the stringy-bark, fine Cypress-pine trees, the stunted silver-leaved Ironbark, a Eucalyptus, with very scanty foliage, orange-coloured blossoms, seed-vessels longitudinally ribbed, and as large as the egg of a fowl; its butt was covered with a lamellar bark, but the upper part and the branches were white and smooth; also by another Eucalyptus, with a scaly butt like the Moreton Bay ash, but with smooth upper trunk and cordate ovate leaves, which was also new to me; we called it the Apple-gum.
In the camping place of the natives, I found a large round stone of porphyry, upon which the natives were accustomed to break the seed-vessels of Pandanus. I could discover no indications of this rock in the creek, not even the smallest pebble; and I am consequently inclined to think that this stone was brought by the natives from a considerable distance to the south-west.
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