Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/597

 S Y N

SYNCHYSiS, SuQptut t in rhetoric, a confufed .manner of expreflion,_ where the natural order of the words is perverted. Horace affe£ts it much: thus lib. i, fat. 5.

Ptene macros arfit dum turdos verfat in .igne.

SYNCOMISTERIA, EuMEefAtflajK^ j n antiquity, the fame with tbalyjia. See Thalysia.

SYNCOMISTQN, a name .given by Athcnasus, and fome other authors, to the coarfer fort of bread eaten by the poor in many countries, and made of unfitted meal, the bran be- ing mixed up among the reft. This is a very nouriihin^ ■food, and for laborious people, or thofe who ufe much exer- cife, is highly preferable to all other lints of bread.

SYNCRISIS, a word ufec! by the chemical writers to exprefs a concretion, or coagulation of any thing, effected by a fpon- taneous, or violent reduction of a liquid fubftance to a folid one, by a privation of the humid.

SYNCRISMATA, a fort of ointment, of the nature of the acopa, in ufe among the antients.

SYNCRITICA, a name given by fome writers to .fuch medi- cines as are of a coercive and aftringent quality., whether ufed externally, or given internally.

SYNDESIS, a word ufed by the antient phyficians to exprefs a binding, or ftraitcning.

SYNDESMOSIS, in anatomy, a connection of the bones, ■called alfo fyituxrofis.

SYNDESMUS, in anatomy, a word ufed by fame for a liga- ment. See Ligament.

SYNECHES, in medicine, is the name of a fever of the next degree to the intermittent: it alfo fecms to be fome thing of kin to thofe, and is called the continent, or remitting fever. It is a continual fever in regard to duration, though not in degree, continuing many days together without intermiflion : but then it has its diminutions and augmentations ; fome- times regular, fometimes irregular, though no true inter- mimons. Aliens s Synopfis, p. 3.

SYNECTICON, a word ufed by the old writers to exprefs the proximate caufe of a difeafe ; called alfo the caufa conti- neniy and always remaining clofely united with the difeafe.

SYNERGASMA, a word ufed by Libavius, and fome other authors, to exprefs any operation in cbemiftry. The ope- rations are by this author divided into two dafles, the energetic, and preparatory : the firft producing fuch bodies as are of power to act on others as menflruums, to cure dif- eafes, and the like ; and the others producing no fuch things, but being decenary preparatives to them.

SYNESTIC is fometimes applied by phyficians to exprefs the ftools when firm, and of a confidence ; fuch as to make them remain in their fhape, in oppofition to liquid ones.

SYNGENESIA, in botany, a clafs of plants with hermaphro- dite flowers, whole (tamiaa are naturally formed into a jingle regular congeries.

The word is formed of the Greek *&r 9 together, and j*w<wt, formation. The plants comprehended under it are thofe whofe ftamina, by the junction of their apices, are formed into a fingle regular q-lindric body ; and among thefe are the lettuce, fuccory, hawkweed, &c.

The fyngenefia expreiles the fame claft of plants with the com- pound flowered plants of Ray, and others. The general characters of the clafs are thefe.

The cup is the crown of the feed, and ftands on the fum- mit of the germen. The flower confifts of one petal, and has a very narrow and long tube placed upon the germen : this is either tubular, ligulated, or naked. The tubular flower of the jyngenefta has, at the fumrait of the tube, a wide campanulated mouth, divided into five fegments, which are expanded, and fomewhat bent back- ward. The ligulated flower is that which has a plain and ftrait edge turning outwards, with a truncated apex undi- vided, but furnifhed with three or four teeth. The naked flowers are thofe which have no mouth at all j and often in thefe, even the tube is alfo wanting. The ftamina are five very fhort and flender filaments, inferted into the tube of the flower. The anthera: are of the fame number with the ftamina : they are ilender, erect, and grow together at their fides, fo as to form a tubular cylindric body of the length of the mouth of the flower, and divided into five fegments at the edge. The germen of the pifKl is oblong, and placed under the receptacle of the flower. The ftyle is capillary, erect, and of the length of the ftamina, and goes through the cylinder formed by the anthers. The ftigma is divid- ed into two parts, which ftand open, and bend backwards. Thefe plants have properly no pericarpium, though in fome few fpecies there is a coriaceous cruft placed about the feed. The feed is fingle and oblong, often of a quadrangular fi- gure, and fometimes narrower at the bafe than in any other part. Linnari Gen. Plant, p. 370.

The feeds are, in the different genera of this clafs, of a very 'different appearance at the ends. Some are crowned with a downy matter, compofed of a great number of fingle fhort filaments, placed circularly, orotherwife, on the head of the feed. In fome the downy matter is radiated ; in others it is ramofe, or branched ; and in fome it is fupported on a pe- ■ dicle, while in others it ftands immediately on the feed. In fome genera the feeds have no down, at all, but have a

S Y N

(mall corona, formed of what was originally the cup of the flower : this is permanent, and divided ufuafly into five fer- ments. In fome genera the feed is wholly naked, having neither any down, nor this crown of a cup h

The fexes -of the plants of tllis clafs are very varioufly dif- pofed, and it is owing to this that there are among them feveral different kinds of flowers. The tubulated flower is called m hermaphrodite flower, when it contains both the ftamina and piftil. It is called a male flower, when it con- tains only ftamina without any ftigmata. It is called a fe- male flower, when it contains a ftigma and no ftamina. And there is flill another fort of flower, called neutral, among this clafs of plants ; thefe have neither ftamina, piftil, nor ftigma, nor indeed any other part of fructification, i hele feveral kinds of flowers are, in the defections of the genera, called ligulated, campanulated, tic. from their flripe. A flower compofed of a great number of thefe fmall flowers is called flofcular, or flofculofe flower ; each of thefe, from their being fmall, and only making up a part of a general flower, being called a flofcule. The common receptacle of the fructification in the flofculous flowers contains always feveral flofcules ; and in the various genera the difk, on which thefe are received, is cither concave, convex plain globofe, or, finally, pyramidal. This receptacle is called by fome thalmnus.

The fuperfieies of this receptacle is called bv authors, in fome genera, naked, in others paleaceous. In the naked kinds, it a either abfolutcly bare, or elfc covered wiih a number of lmall tubercles, or with fhort and erefl hairs. The paleaceous receptacles are covered on the furface with narrow, Tubulated, and painted palose, or chaffy fubflanccs. Thefe ftand erefi, and are placed between the flofcules. The common cup, or perianthium, in thefe plants, con- tains, or indoles both this receptacle, and all the flofcules: this is contrafletl together at the top when the plant is in flower, but it expands itfelf when the flofcules are fallen, and the feeds are to ripen. This general cup h, in its dif- ferent appearances in the f.veral genera, diftiniruifhcd bv au- thors by the epithet fimplrx, imhiiatus, mdnuffus. 'The perianthium fimplex, or fimple cup, is that which con- fifts of only one fimple feries of leaves, which furround the flower. The imbricated cup is that which is compofed of a vaft number of fhort fquaMm*, or (tales, the "exterior ones being gradually fhorter thai- the inner ones, which they lie upon. The calyx ainftus is that, in which while one feries of long and equal fegments furrounds the flofcules, an- other fmall feries furrounds only the bafe of the inner, Am- ple, and larger cup. The compound flowers are very va- riouflv^ compofed, in regard to the nature of the flofcules. Linntsi Gen. Plant, p. 371.

I. Some are compofed of tubulofe hermaphrodite flowers in the difk, and of the fame fort of tubulous hermaphrodite floweis in the radius. 2. Others are compofed of tubulofe hermaphrodite flowers in the difk, and of tubulous female flowers in the radius. 3. Some are compofed of tubulous hermaphrodite flowers in the difk, and of tubulofe neutral flowers in the radius. 4. Some have tubulofe hermaphrodite flowers in the difk, and ligulated hermaphrodite flowers in the radius. 5. Some are compofed of tubulous hermaphro- dite flowers in the difk, and of ligulated female flowers in the radius. 6. Some are compofjd of tubulous hermaphro- dite flowers in the difk, and ligulated neutral flowers' in the radius. 7. Some are compofed of tubulous hermaphro- dite flowers in the did:, and of naked and neutral flowers in the radius. 8. Some ate compofed of -tubulofe male flowers in the difk, and of naked female flowers in the radius. And 9. fome are compofed of ligulated female flowers in the difk, and ligulated hermaphrodite flowers in the radius. The eflential character of a ilofculous flower confifls in its anthera growing together into a cylindric body, and pro- ducing a fingle feed, which ftands under the receptacle of the fcparate flofcule. Id. p. 372.

The common cup is ufual in moft genera of this plant, but it is no univerfal character, for it is wanting in the echino- pus. Nor is this the only variation they are fubject to, for the common receptacle, which might feem a very eflential part of the plant, is wanting in the milleria. ft is evident from this, how very uncertain characters the common cup, and common receptacle of the feeds, are in this clafs of plants ; for though they have been judged eflential, and unerring marks, yet we find the two plants above named want them feverally ; and we alfo find that fome plants are pofl'efled of them, which have not the other characters of the clafs. Thus fcabious has a common cup, and dipfacus a common receptacle, yet neither fcabious, nor dipfacus, are flofculous, or, as they may much more properly be called, fyngencfitms plants.

It is very remarkable that Plunder has no genus of com- pound flowers. Tournefort, though he had not the aflift- ances of the later obfervations on the ftamina and anthera; to guide him, yet has fixed very natural genera in the clafs of the fyngencfioM, or compound flowered plants. Vaillant made more obfervations on the nature of the flowers of thefe plants, than any one who went before him, and the 3 only