L I T
LIT*
alone, being always prefcribed with other medicines of the fame intention.
Difpcnfary writers have -given us receipts for a great many preparations of coral, as magifteries, tinctures, fyrups, falts, &c. none of which enter the prefent practice.
Lithophyton terrejlre, a name given by Mr. Marchant to afpecies of plant, approaching to the mufhroom kind, and refembling that fungous production, compared by fome authors to the clutters of the ./Ethiopian pepper. Mr. Marchant's curious obfervations on this little regarded fubject, give many valuable hints towards the explaining the vegetation of great numbers of the other plants, whofe fructification is lefs obvious to the eyes, and may lead to a knowledge of many of the fructifications of fea plants ; which all our enquires, on other foundations, have as yet left us unacquainted with.
This gentleman having cut down a maple in his garden, found after fome months a number of little tubercles, of a fungous fubftance on the flump ; they fomewbat approach- ed to the figure of an olive, with its ftalk, and were then of a brown colour.
The outfide of thefe tubercles was porous, and they ap- peared fomewhat fpongy though rigid, and on fqueezing a little there iftued out of the pores a fmall quantity of an aqueous humidity ; the infide, when it was cut open, ap- peared compofed of fine and clofely compacted fibres. Thefe plants, as they may properly be called, flood the whole winter, and in the following (bring were found to be grown to their full fize, which was about an inch and half long, and half an inch thick ; they flood in clutters, of near twenty together, and refembled a fet of irregular and ill proportioned fingers, and when prefTed were found to be much harder than while young. Mem. Acad. Par. 171 1. The pores on their furface, which frill continued vifible, and were very different from any known plant of the mufhroom kind, gave the obferver hopes of a difco- very of fometbing new in the fructification, and the flump of the tree being now perfectly dry, and unable to furnilli any more nourifliment to them, he cut them all off, with part of the ttump, and carried them to his clofet for obfervation.
Each plant was nearly circular in figure, and terminated in a round if h or pointed end, and had at feveral diffances two or three circular lines, by means of which it refembled a toe or finger with its joints. The outer fkin was now become wrinkled, and the pores were all furrounded with a fort of rofaceous rim, and within them there often appeared a num- ber of fine flender filaments, having the appearance of ttamina. On cutting the plants vertically, thefe pores were all found to correfpond with certain round cavities within the plant, which were lined with a black matter. Thefe cavities were formed in a white fibrous matter; all the fibres of which took their origin at the center, and tended to the cir- cumference, and of thefe was the whole inner fubftance of the plant compofed.
Some months after this, on cutting more of thefe plants, the round cavities, in fome of them, were found filled with a black matter, in form of a powder, compofed of final] granules, and looked as if filled up with very fine gun- powder. The help of a microfcope fhewed this matter to be compofed of fmall black particles, refembling the feeds of the vanilla pods, only vaflly lefs, and not fo fhining. On the whole, Mr. Marchant, notwithstanding the external refemblance of this plant to fome of the muflirooms, thinks, that when clofely examined, it approaches more to the nature of the marine litbopbyttms.
It grows, as he'obferves, on hard bodies, without any ap- pearance of roots in the manner of thofe fea plants. Its bark, or outer covering, feems a fort of coriaceous or tar- tareous fubftance, much more refembling the bark of the fea tithophytons than that of any land plant ; and its pores fur- rounded with rofaceous rims, and anfwering to certain cavi- ties containing feeds within the body of the plant, bring it to a near refemblance with the fea litbopbytom, though they do not at all refemble any known land plant. The corah and other lltbopbytam of the fea have all of them flowers on their furface, furrounded with the fame fort of rofaceous rim with the pores of this plant : in the fea plants the flowers are indeed more diftinguifhable than in this land vegetable, but their feeds are too fmall for the niceft eye to tliftinguifh ; thefe, however, in the land plant, are large enough to be eafily feen ; and thus between both kinds, the whole fecret of the fructification both of thefe two, and of multitudes, of other plants of the fame clafs, both fea and land ones mav be underftood. Mem. Acad. Par. 1711.
LITHOPHOSPHORUS/w/j/^, in natural hiftory, a name given by fome authors to a fpecies of fpar, which, when it has been heated over the fire, retains a property of giving light in the dark. This is a quality that feems more or lefs in degree to be inherent in feveral forts of fpars. Woodw. Cat.Fofr. V. 2. p. 11.
The Bononian ttone is a fofiile of this kind, and feveral of the green fpars of the German mines, have been found to poffefs this quality in fome degree. ■The Ikhopbofpborus here meant, has the appearance of a
common purple fpar. There is another kind, of an opake white colour, fo common about the edge of the Hart's foreft, that it is ufed as a flux for fome of the copper ores, readily burning into lime, and then acting as an alkali, and abforbing their fulphurs ; this kind, when moderately heated, fhews an elegant light on being put into a dark room, but when it is heated too much it burfts to pieces. LITHOPTERIS, Jl one fern, in natural hiftory, a name given by Mr. Lhuyd, to fome of the fofEle plants of the fern kind. See Plants/^. LITHOSPERMUM, gromwcll, in the Linnsan fyfrem of botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The cup is an oblong erect perianthium, di- vided into five fegments, and remaining after the flower is fallen. The feveral fegments are tapering and hollowed. The flower confifts of a fmgle petal of the length of the cup, formed into a cylindric tube, with its edge divided flightly into five erect obtufe fegments ; the mouth of the flower is perforated. The ftamina are five extremely fhort filaments, the antherae are oblong, and fituated in the opening of the flower. The piftil has four germina, the ftyle is flender, and of the length of the tube of the flower. The ftigma is obtufe and bifid. The cup remains to fupply the place of a fruit, containing in its bottom four fmooth,, very hard, and pointed feeds. Linnai Gen. Plant, p. 57. The characters of this genus, according to Tournefort, are thefe. The flower confifts of one leaf, and is fafhioned like a funnel, and divided into fegments at the edge. The cup is divided to its very bafe, and from it there arifes a piftil, which is fixed in the manner of a nail in the lower part of the flower, and furrounded with four embryos, which afterwards become fo many roundifh hard poliihed bodies, remaining till ripe in the cup, which becomes en- larged for the containing them. Tanm. Inft. p. 137. The fpecies of gromwcll, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe. I. The fmaller upright gromwcll. 2. The great creeping broad leaved gromivell. 3. The common fmaller field gromwcll. 4. The fmaller field gromivell with blueifh yellow flowers. 5. The fmall blue flowered marfh or water gromwell. 6. The fmaller marfh gromwcll with white flow- ers. 7. The fmall alpine woolly gromwcll. There have been feveral plants referred to this genus, by authors, which do not at all belong to it. Of this number are, 1. The Job's tears. See Lacryma jabi. 2. The redrooted field gromivell, afpecies of buglofs. SeeBuGLoss. 3. The lithofpermum linarlcs folio, a fpecies of tbymcleea ; and another plant of the fame name, a fpecies of flax. See Flax and Linum.
The feeds of the common gronnvell, which are hard, white, and of a delicate polifh, are recommended as very powerful diure- tics, and fome have pretended to cure the ftone folely by the ufe of them. The good women have an opinion of them alfo, as promoters of the menfes and of labour. LITHOSTROTA, among the antients, pavements made up of fmall pieces of cut marble of different kinds and colour. Pitifc. Lex. Ant. in voc. LITHOSTROTION, in natural hiftory, the name of a fpe- cies of foflile coral, compofed of a great number of long and flender columns, fometimes round, fomctimes angular, jointed nicely to one another, and of a ftarry or radiated fur- face at their tops. Thefe are found in conftderable quan- tities in the northern and weftern parts of this kingdom, fometimes in fmgle, fometimes in complex fpecimens. See Tab. of Fcflils, Clafs 7. LITHOXOS. See Colaptice.
LITHOXYLUM, in botany, a term ufed by Linnaeus, to exprefs a heterogeneous fubftance on fea plants, which has fructifications in imprefled points. LITHUS, a name given by fome authors for the magnet. LITUITES, in natural hiftory, a name given by fome authors to a figured foflile, found in the fhell of the fea fifh, called lituus y a concamerated fhell of the conic kind, running ftrait for a great part of its length, and after that twilling into a fpiral form. LINUFAR, in botany, a name ufed by Jbme of the writers of the middle ages, to exprefs the water lilly. The Arabians gave this genus of plants the name of nilufar, and this word' linufar is only formed of that by tranfpofmg fome of tlje letters. See Nilufar. LITOTES, Afc, in rhetoric. SecLiPTOTES. LITTER (Cycl.) — When a horfe comes tired into a ftable, freib. litter has the virtue always to occafion him immediately to flale. This is known to be a very great advantage to 2 horfe in a tired ftate ; and when the Utter is old and dirty, it never- has any fiich effect upon him. If the owner kne'W how refrefhing it is to a horfe to difcharge his urine on his return from labour, they would b& more careful in giving him all means and occaftons of it than they do. This ftal- ing after fatigue prevents thofe obftructlons in the neck of the bladder or urinary paflages, which horfes are too fubject to. The bladder being often inflamed by the long reten- tion of the heated urine in it, and the creature perifhmg by it. Some of our farmers act wrong in this cafe of the litter % not through carelcfsnefs or accident, but by principle ; they order the old litter to be left a Ions; time in the ftables, that 5 it
