There are several plants bearing, in some form or other, the appellation of Dragon. The common Dragon (_Arum Dracunculus_) is, as its name implies, a species of Arum, which sends up a straight stalk about three feet high, curiously spotted like the belly of a serpent. The flower of the Dragon plant has such a strong scent of carrion, that few persons can endure it, and it is consequently usually banished from gardens. Gerarde describes three kinds of Dragons, under the names of Great Dragon, Small Dragon, and Water Dragon: these plants all have homœopathic qualities, inasmuch as although they are by name at least vegetable reptiles, yet, according to Dioscorides, all who have rubbed the leaves or roots upon their hands, will not be bitten by Vipers. Pliny also says that Serpents will not come near anyone who carries a portion of a Dragon plant with him, and that it was a common practice in his day to keep about the person a piece of the root of this herb. Gerarde tells us that “the distilled water has vertue against the pestilence or any pestilentiall fever or poyson, being drunke bloud warme with the best treacle or mithridate.” He also says that the smell of the flowers is injurious to women who are about to become mothers. The Green Dragon (_Arum Dracontium_), a native of China, Japan, and America, possesses a root which is prescribed as a very strong emmenagogue. There is a species of Dragon which grows in the morasses about Magellan’s Strait, whose flowers exhibit the appearance of an ulcer, and exhale so strong an odour of putrid flesh, that flesh-flies resort to it to deposit their eggs. Another Dragon plant is the _Dracontium polyphyllum_, a native of Surinam and Japan, where they prepare a medicine from the acrid roots, which they call _Konjakf_, and esteem as a great emmenagogue: it is used there to procure abortion. _Dracontium fœtidum_, Fetid Dragon, or Skunk-weed, flourishes in the swamps of North America, and has obtained its nickname from its rank smell, resembling that of a Skunk or Pole-cat. Dragon’s Head (_Dracocephalum_) is a name applied to several plants. The Moldavian Dragon’s Head is often called Moldavian or Turk’s Balm. The Virginian Dragon’s Head is named by the French, _La Cataleptique_, from its use in palsy and kindred diseases. The Canary Dragon’s Head, a native of the Canary Islands, is called (improperly) Balm of Gilead, from its fine odour when rubbed. The old writers called it _Camphorosma_ and _Cedronella_, and ascribed to it, as to other Dragon plants, the faculty of being a remedy for the bites and stings of venomous beasts, as well as for the bites of mad Dogs. The Tarragon (_Artemisia Dracunculus_), “the little Dragon,” is the Dragon plant of Germany and the northern nations, and the _Herbe au Dragon_ of the French. The ancient herbalists affirmed that the seed of the Flax put into a Radish-root or Sea Onion, and so set, would bring forth the herb Tarragon.