Anguis Minor Fuscus Maculatus: The little brown Bead Snake.
These are always small, seldom appear above Ground, but are dug
up and found twisting about the Roots of Shrubs and other Plants.
All the Back and upper Part of the Body, have transverse Spots of
brown and white, so disposed, as to make some Resemblance of a String
of Beads, which seems to have given its English Name. It
is an harmless Snake.
Corallodendron humile, spica florum longissima coccinea, radice
crassissimo.
This Shrub rises from the Ground with many straight, taper, pithy
Stalks, to the Height of five or six Feet; the upper Part of which,
for about twenty Inches, are thick set with papilionaceous Scarlet
Flowers, with yellow Stamina: In May the Flowers begin
to blow at the Bottom, producing successively its beautiful Blossoms
to the End of the Stalk; the Flowers are set two and three together,
on short Foot-stalks: In August the Fruit is ripe, consisting
of Pods, in Shape and Size resembling Kidney-Beans, containing also
such like Seeds, but of a bright Scarlet Colour. In Winter the whole
Plant dies to the Ground, leaving as a Monument of fading Glory
its withered Stalks, which remain standing the whole Winter, and
are towards their Bottoms as big as the largest walking Cane. The
Leaves consist of three triangular Lobes, growing mostly near the
Ground and lower Parts of the Plant. The Root of this Plant resembles
that of Briony, being large at Top, running down into the Earth
four or five Feet, white within, and covered with a brown Rind;
some of them so large, that they weigh upwards of twenty Pounds.
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