Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/630

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the upper one is oval, erect, and concave ; the lower is divi- ded into three principal fegments. The two fide ones round- ifh and expanded, and the middle one divided again into two roundilh fegments. The fruit is a round berry covered with the cup, containing four angular feeds in one cell. Plumkr, p. 17. Limai Gen. Plant, p. 521.

DURION, in natural hiftory, the name of a fruit common in China and the Eaft Indies, and efteemed by the Indians the fineft of all fruits; but the Europeans do not allow it this, be- caufe of its difagreeable fmell. The tree which bears it is large and much branched, and its wood is like that of the hazel. The leaves are of a very fingular figure, being about fix inches long, and fixteen or eighteen inches broad: they terminate in a long and fiender point. The upper fide of the leaves is of a dusky green, the under fide is whitifh with fome yellow fpecks. The leaves grow on Oiort pedicles, which are joined to the flalks by a protuberance or oblong knot. The fruit grows to the large branches, adhering to their middles by a ftiong wood ftalk. It is of the iize of an ordinary melon, and of a conic fhapc, pointed at the extremity, and is all over befet with prickles refembling thofe of a hedge-hog: they are green, and very large and thick. When thoroughly ripe, the fruit opens at the extremity into five parts, and the cracks or openings running by degrees up to the top, the inner fubftance or pulp is difcovered. This is of a whitifh colour, and of a very agreeable flavour, which may not unaptly be compared to that of cream and fugar; but it is of a more firm confiftence. This fruit contains in every compartment five large feeds perfectly refembling the common chefnut, but that they have no other covering than their own skin.

Thecourfe of vegetation is elegantly feen In differing the pe- dicle which fupports this fruit j for in this are fcen the three different juices which (crve to the nourifhment of the three different parts of the fruit. In cutting this pedicle tranfverfly, we firft find between the bark and the woody fibres, a yellow- ifh, thick, and glutinous juice: this ferves for the nutriment of the thorns. A fecond juice difcovers itfelf within the firft woody fibres, which is white and more folid, and lefs gluti- nous. This gives nourifhment to a thick skin of a filvery white, which lines the pulpy part of the fruit- And, finally, in the center of the pedicle there runs a third, much whiter and fofter than the former, which ferves to the nourifhment of the pulp, or foft and fweet-tafted part of the frujf. The fruit itfelf, were its fmell as agreeable as its tafte, would vye with any fruit in the world; but its very difagreeable fcent requires time and cuftom to enable any one to bear it ; but ufe makes the natives wholly difregard it. The fmell is very like that of onions, that have lain in heaps till they are very rotten. The fruit is not only agreeable to the tafte, but of a very cordial virtue ; but it will intoxicate and get into the head, if eaten in a large quantity, efpecially fuch of the fruits as are of a yellowifh colour. The natives make de- bauches with it, as our poorer people do with fpirituous li- quors. But it is not fo eafily come at as thofe, and therefore is very fatal to many families among them, who will fell their liberties for a time to purchafe enough of it for a debauch. The Durion tree flowers in January. The flowers are of a dusky colour, and of the fize of a nut. As foon as thefe fall, the fruit begins to appear. It afterwards increafes {lowly in fize till the month of June, in which it begins to ripen. Others continually fucceed thefe early ones during the whole fummer, fo that there is a fucceflion of them during that fea- lbn, and they do not begin to grow fcarce till about the mid- dle of October. Mem. Acad. Scienc. Par. 1699.

DURUNEGI, in the materia medica, a name given by the A- rabian writers to the root of the doronicum, which is fo well defcribed by Avifenna, that we are very well informed of its nature, and find it to be the root of the fame plant, which we at this time know by that name. He fays it came to them in pieces, looking like the fhort joints of a woody root ; and that it was either yellow or white on the infide, and of a grey- ilh colour on the furface, and that it was confiderably hard and ponderous.

The doronicum we know at this time has a root that very well anfwers thefe characters ; and tho 5 yellow, when frefh, is very apt to become whitifh. in decaying. The interpreter of Avifenna, whofe comments are moft generally received, adds, that the pieces of Durunegi in the fhops were about the length and fize of the la ft joint of the thumb. But it is not eafy to make out this from the text without making very free with the words ; and indeed the pieces of the doronicum we now receive from Germany are generally longer and thinner than this defcription fecms to make them, though they very well anfwer to the account of Avifenna of their coming off in ii fort of joints. The root being naturally jointed, or compo- fed of a great number of pieces.

The name Durunegi is a very plain copy of the Greek name of the fame plant, which is not doronicon, as might be fup- pofed from the Latin doronicum, but durunizi, or Af«p/£/. The change of the £ into ag-, or theg into a£, is very com- mon in the turning Greek into Arabick, or Arabick into

Greek name6. Thus the zedoar of the Greeks is the o- e d of the Arabians, and fo in a thoufand other inftancts. ° M The word Durunegi, or, as it is fometimes written, Durones' is however fometimes made to exprefs another plant wh f fhape, as well as virtues, are very different from that above 6 mentioned.

The fecond kind of Durunegi was a root not jointed but formed all of one piece, and very much refembledour iedo- ary in fhape. It was always white on the infide, and grev on the furface, 'twas of an agreeable tafte, and was preferred as an aromatic and cardiac in many compofitions. In the viati- cum Conftantini we find it prefcribed along with fpikenard cinnamon, and zedoary ; and in another part of the fame piece, nutmeg, caftor, duronegi and zedoary are prefcribed together. It is very evident from this, that the Durunegi here meant, could not be the poifonous doronicum j and it is much to be lamented, that we do not find different names for fo very different plants. We have at this time two plants of the doronicum kind, the one called thora, and the other anti- thora ; the one allowed to be a poifon, the other by many efteemed an alexipharmic. The thora, or poifonous kind, is yellow within, and the antithora is white. Thefe may pro- bably be the two kinds of Durunegi mentioned by the Arabians : and if fo, the poifonous qualities of the one, and the virtues of the other, ftand on a higher record than many have fuppo- fed. Thefe two roots were lately fent over into England among *our parcels of gentian, and did much mifebief, many people fuffering greatly by the bitter infulions in which they made a part. This was probably owing wholly to the thora' or yellow root, which has a poifonous fmell ; not to the other) which has all the appearances of being innocent.

DUST Mfs, in botany. SeeBvssus.

DWARFS (Cycl.) — Dwarfs were called Nani and Nana amongft the Romans ; and were held in fuch requeft, that artificial me- thods were ufed in order to prevent the growth of boys de- figned for Dwarfs, by inclofing them in a box, or binding them with bandages. Auguftus's niece Julia, was mighty fond of one of thefe Dwarfs called Sonopas, who was only two feet and a hand-breadth high. Pitifc. See Dwarfing.

DwARF-Trm, were formerly very much in requeft in gardens, but fince the introducing of Efpaliers, they are much neglect- ed. The manner however of propagating dwarf pears, which have been found to fucceed the beft of any Dzuarfs, is this : they are to be grafted on a quince ftock, and that at about fix in- ches above the ground, and when the bud has mot fo far as to have four eyes, it is to be flopped, to give rife to lateral branches. Two years after the budding, the trees will be fit to tranfplant to where they rauft remain. They ihould be fet at five and twenty feet fquare diftance, and the ground be- tween may be fown or planted for kitchen ufe, while the trees are young, only obferving not to plant too near their roots. There fhould be ftakes driven down all round the tree to which the branches muft be nailed with lift, whde they are young, training them into an horizontal direction, and no branches are to be fuffered afterwards to crofs one another, and in the fhortening the fhoots, the uppermoft eye muft al- ways be left outwards. The fummer and autumn pears are thofe which do beft in dwarfs, for the winter ones never fuc- ceed well on them.

Apples are alfo fometimes planted as Dwarfs, and are for this purpofe moft commonly grafted on paradife ftocks. Thefe fpread much lefs than the pears, and therefore need only be fet at about eight feet diftance. Some alfo plant apricocks and plumbs for Dwarfs, but thefe being of a more tender conftitu- tion feldom fucceed well. Miller's Gard. Did.

Dwarf Fern, in botany. See Filicula.

DWARFING, a term ufed by fome authors for the flopping the natural growth of animals, and rendering them fmaller than they would naturally be. In Bononia they are very fond of fmall dogs ; and inftead of flopping their growth by the way in ufe here, of giving them milk wherein daify-roots are boiled, they do it by wafhing their feet and their back-bone every day, from the time they are pupped, with either cold water alone, or water with aftringent ingredients, fuch as biftort and oak- bark boiled in it. This prevents the extenfion of the parts by hardening and corrugating them. They prefcribe alfo a method of dwarfing of men by anointing their back-bones in their infancy with the greafe of moles, bats, and dormice. But this feems merely imaginary. The other operating by natural caufes may poffcbly have fome effect ; and perhaps the addition of alum to the water, and making them take fpiritu- ous liquors internally, might be of great ufe. A£t. Erud. Lipf. 1670.

DYES Tellovj, See the article Yellow.

DYERS's Weed. See Luteola.

DYEING {Cycl) — The art of dyeing is indebted for many of its valuable colours to the vegetable kingdom ; and may be much more fo, if the world will he at the pains of enquiring into the properties of the plants that grow about the fields. Mr. Ju{~ lieu obferved in the drying plants between fhcets of paper, in order to the making a hortus ficcus in the common way, that

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