verbascum

[Lat.=mullein. See def.] Botany Mullein, the typical genus of Verb as cere Tall, erect, tomentose or woolly plants, usually biennial. Leaves alternate; inflorescence in racemes; calyx five-partite; corolla rotate or regular; stamens five, the three upper ones or all five hairy; capsule of two cells and two valves, septicidal; seeds many. Known species about eighty, chiefly from Europe and Asia. The flowers of the Great Mullein, when dried in the sun, give out a fatty matter, used in Alsace as a cataplasm in hæmorrhoids. Its root is administered in India as a febrifuge. The seeds of V. thapsus and V. nigrum are used by poachers to poison fish, and the flowers of V. lychnitis to destroy mice. ver-bā'-tim, adv. [Lat.] IMG:content-0457.png:[blocks in formation] "The sound that both by sea and land out-flies, Rebounds again, and verberates the skies." Mirror for Magistrates , p. 16. ver-ber-ā-tion, subst . [Latin ver be ratio , from ver be ratus , pa. par. of verbero =to beat.] 1. The act of beating or striking; a blow, a percu ion. "Distinguishing verberation , which was accompanied with pain, from pulsation, which was attended with none."-Black stone: Comment . , bk. iii., ch. 8. 2. The impulse of a body which causes sound. ver-bě-si-na, subst. [Mod. Lat., from verbena (q. v.).] Bot .: The typical genus of Verbesinee (q.v). Herbs, shrubs, or small trees growing in America with pinnately-lobed leaves, and flowers generally yellow, or the ray florets white, those of the disc yellow; the achenes with two stiff awns at the apex. [GuIzOTIA.]