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Show RHUBARB. HISTORY. RHUBARB. RHEUM PALMATUM. Class 1X. Enneandria. Order III. Trigynia. Essent. GEN. Cuar. Calyx none: Corolla six-cleft, abiding: Seed one, triquetrous, Spec. Cusr. Leaves palmate, acuminate, rough. a DESCRIPTION: Tue stalk rises six or eight feet, erect, round, jointed, sheathed. Radical leaves numerous, large, of a roundish figure, deeply cut into lobes andirregularly pointed segments, standing upon long smooth, round footstalks. Stalk leaves proceed from the spits, to which they furnish membranous sheaths, and gradually ie. come smaller as theyclothe the upperparts of the stem. Flower s ~ termina é te the branches in numerous clusters, forming numerous spikes, which appear in May. The germen becomes a seed with membranous margins of a red colour. It is a native of Tartary in Asia, and may be cultivated in England. The first account we have of the rhubarb being raised in England is from Parkinson, who says ‘+ he received the seeds from Asia in 1629, from beyond the seas, by a worthy gentleman, Dr. Lister, and the rhapontic rhubarb first grew with him be~ fore it was ever seen or known elsewhere in England.” This was long supposed to be the true rhubarb, until the waved or undulated rhubarb (Rheum undulatum) was discovered. This was raised in the Leyden botanic garden, and the seeds were sent by the great Boerhaave to our famous gardener Miller, in 1759, by the title of the true Chinese rhubarb (Rhabarbarum Chinese verum), which succeeded very well, and Linnzus fixed on it the appellation of the true rhabarb (Rheum rhabarbarum). But in order to ascertain what the Turkey rhubarb was, which comes from Thibet mountains in Tartary, the great Boerhaave got from a Tartarian rhubarb merchant the seeds of the plants which produced the roots that he annually sold, and were admitted at St. Petersburgh to be the genuine rhubarb. These seeds were soon propagated, and were discovered by him to produce two distinct species; namely, the undulated rhubark (Rheum rhatarbarum) of Linnzus, or,as it has beensince cadled, Rheum undulatum ; and another, a specimen of which being presented to Linnzus, he declared it to be a newone, and intro- duced it in his second edition of the Species Plantarum by the name of palmated rhubarb (Rheum palmatum). . Previous to this De Gorter had repeatedly sent the seeds to Linneus, but the young plants which they produced constantly perished ; at length he obtained the fresh root, which succeeded very well at Upsal, and afterwards enabled the younger Linnzus to describe this plant in the year 1767. But two years antecedent tothis, Dr. Hope’s account of the palmated rhubarb, as it grew in the botanic garden near Edinburgh, had been read before the Royal Socicty in London. The seeds werefirst introduced into Great Britain in 1762 by Dr. Mounsey, who first sent them from Russia; and these seeds were quickly dispersed over the island. At the same time that Dr. Hope cultivated them at Edinburgh, professor Martyn raised abundance of the plants in the botanic garden at Cambridge, from Dr. Mounsey’s seeds, whichall pro2nd2 |