1 Spec. Plant Willd. i. 1533. Cl. 5. Ord. 5. Pentandria Pentagynia. Nat. ord. Linaceae. G. 590. Calyx five-leaved. Petals five. Capsule five-valved and ten-celled. Seed solitary. * With alternate leaves. Species 1. L. usitatissimum. Common Flax. Med. Pot. 3d edit.

566. t. 202. Smith, Flora Prit. 342. Curtis Lond.fasc. 5. t. 22. ** With opposite leaves. Species 26. L. catharticum. Purging Flax. Smith, Flora Brit.

344. Eng. Pot. 382.

1. Linum usitatissimum.

Officinal. Lini oleum et semina, Lond. Lini usitatissimi semina, Edin. Linum; semina, oleum ex seminibus ex-pressum, Dub. Linseed, and Linseed oil.

Syn. Grains de Lin (F.), Leinsaamen, Flachsaamen (G.), Vlasch (Dutch), Hor (Dan.), Lin (Swed.), Len (Pol.), Alleverei ( Tarn.), Tokhemtukan (Pers.), Bidgierammu (Malay), Semi di Lino (I.), Laxor (S.), Linhaca (Port.), Buzruk (Arab.), Tisi (H.), Atasci (San.).

The common flax is an annual plant, flowering in July. It is supposed to have been originally brought from those parts of Egypt which are annually inundated by the rising of the Nile; but it is now found growing wild in this country, and is cultivated in most parts of Europe. The root is simple and fibrous. The stem is erect, round, smooth, slender, and leafy; branched, with a pannicle at the summit, and rising about two feet in height. The leaves are small, lanceolate, entire, obscurely three-nerved, smooth, sessile, standing nearly upright, and alternate on both the stem and branches. The flowers are petiolate: the calyx persistent, composed of five sharp-pointed, keeled, trinerved, ovate leaflets; and the corolla consists of five notched, oblong, sky-blue, streaked petals, which spread into funnel-formed blossoms. The filaments are white, dilated, and slightly united at the base; the germen is ovate, and crowned with five blue, thread-like, spreading, reflected stigmas. The capsule is globular, the size of a common pea, crowned with a sharp spine, formed by the junction of the spines of the valves in one point, and containing in each cell an elliptical shining seed.1

Dioscoridis.

Although this plant is extensively cultivated in Britain, yet the greater part of the linseed used here is brought from the Baltic. The seed ripens in September, and the plant is then pulled up as soon as the heads begin to change brown and hang downward, otherwise the seeds are soon scattered.

Qualities,-These seeds are inodorous, and have an oily, mucilaginous, sweetish taste. They are small, flat, oval, and covered with a smooth, shining, brown-coloured cuticle, which abounds with a mucus, that can be extracted pure by infusion in boiling water. By expression, they yield one sixth of their weight of fixed oil. The mucus of linseed is colourless, insipid, inodorous, and resembles in its viscidity mucilage of acacia gum; but differs from it in the following particulars:-alcohol precipitates it in white flocks, but the liquid remains clear: acetate of lead throws down a dense precipitate, but persulphate of iron and silicated potassa produce no sensible effect. Nitric acid converts it into mucic acid. Guerin found linseed mucilage to contain both a soluble and an insoluble principle: the former resembles pure gum, the latter differing from both cerasin and bassorin.2 For the qualities of the oil, see Preparations, It exists in the cotyledons.

Medical properties and uses,-Linseed is emollient and demulcent. The mucus obtained by infusion is a cheap and very useful demulcent in catarrh, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and dysentery; visceral inflammations, calculus, gonorrhoea, ardor urinae; and during the exhibition of bichloride of mercury. When the seeds are boiled in water, the mucus is obtained in union with a portion of the oil; forming a useful local remedy when given in the form of enema in abrasions of the intestines and tenesmus, particularly in the advanced stage of puerperal fever, when the offending matter in the bowels stimulates to frequent and involuntary stools : but the portion thrown up must be small in quantity.1 The seeds, ground into powder or meal, and simply mixed with boiling water, form an excellent poultice; valuable on account of the facility with which it is made.

1 The partitions of the cells are singular. Gartner thus describes them :- "Dissepimenta membranacea, conduplicata, laminis suis extrorsum partitis, ita valvularum marginibus inserta, ut, cum has dehiscunt illae; corii follis adinstar explicentur:" and adds, "Dissepimentorum in radiola atque lino fabrica, hac-tenus sine pari est, et essentialem hujus generis praebet characterem."-De Fructibus, ii. 147.

2 Ann. de Chim. et Phys. xlix. 203.

Officinal preparations.-Infusum Lini compositum, L. D. Oleum Lini, E. D. Pulvis pro Cataplasmata, D.

2. Linum catharticum.2 Officinal. Linum catharticum, Dub. Purging Flax.

Syn. Lin purgatif (F.), Purgier Flachs (G.), Purgeervlasch (Dutch), Liden Vildhor (Dan.), Villhor (Swed.), Lino purgativo (I.), Cantilagua (S.), Linho purgante (Portug.).

This is an indigenous annual plant, found on dry and hilly pastures, flowering from June to August. The root is small, and sends up several delicate, leafy, erect, smooth stems, simple at the base, but dichotomous above, many flowered, and from three to nine inches high. The leaves are opposite, of a sub-elliptical, lanceolate shape, obtuse, entire, green on the upper surface, and glaucous beneath. The flowers are small and white; nodding before they open, after which they rise and stand erect. The leaves of the calyx are pointed, serrated, and one-nerved; in the corolla, the petals are obovate, acute, white, and spreading; the filaments are united, forming a circle round the lower part of the germen, which is furnished with capitate stigmas. The seeds are yellow and shining.

Qualities.-Purging flax, whether in the recent state or the dried, is nearly inodorous, and has a bitter, sub-acrid taste. Water extracts the virtues of the plant, which communicates to it, besides its sensible qualities, a yellow colour. Macerated in ether, it affords a green tincture, which deposits, when it is evaporated on the surface of water, a green bitter resin, and an extractive matter, on which the virtues of the plant seem to depend.

Medical properties and uses.-This species of flax was celebrated as a purgative by Gerarde. It may be given in the form of infusion, made with 3 ij. of the dried plant, and Oj. of boiling water, of which f ij. is a dose: of the dried plant in powder, 3j. may be taken for a dose. But it possesses no particular advantages, and only swells unnecessarily the list of purgatives.

1 Denmaris Midwifery, ii. 251.

Graecorum.