ACANTHUS, the name given by the Greeks and Romans to the plants sometimes called brancursine, of which it is also the botanical generic name. A. /410/1i3 and A. spinosa, natives of the south of Europe, are the species best known. -The twining habit of the plants, their large white flowers, and, above all, the beautiful form of their dark and shining leaves, have led to their artistical application, especially in the capitals of Corinthian columns. See ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE. Roman drinking-cups have been fohnd whose handles are twined with A. leaves.—The ancients made the A. snollis chiefly their pattern; but in Gothic ornaments more use is made of the smaller and less beautiful leaves of A. spinosa.
The genus A. is the type of the natural order ACANTIEACE/E, which contains nearly 1400 known species. They arc herbaceous plants or shrubs, chiefly tropical; dicotyled onous. The greater part are mere weeds, but the genera justicia, aphelandra, and ruel lia contain some of our finest hot-house flowers. The leaves are opposite, rarely in fours, simple; two or three bracts, which are often large and leafy, accompany each flower.
The calyx is persistent, usually 5-leaved, occasionally cut into ninny pieces, sometimes obsolete. The corolla is monopetalous, hypogynous, usually irregular, deciduous. The stamens are generally two; sometimes four, didynamous, the shorter ones sometimes sterile; the anthers -4-celled, opening lengthwise. The disk is glandular; the ovary free, 2-celled, with two or more ovules in each cell; placentae adhering in the axis; style one. The fruit is a capsule, bursting elastically with two valves, the disscpiment also separating into two pieces through the axis. The seeds are roundish, hanging by hard. usually hooked processes of the placenta; testa loose; albumen wanting; embryo curved or straight; cotyledons large; radicle subeylindrical, next the hilum.—Some of tha aeanthaem are used in their native countries as medicines. A valuable deep-blue dye, called room, is obtained in Assam from a species of media.