STILLIN'GIA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order eupkorbiacecc, and named in compliment to Dr. Stillingfleet, an English botanist. The generic character istics are: flowers moneecions; males aggregate; calyx cup-shaped, creuulate, or bifid; stamens two, inverted; filaments united at the base; anthers opening. outward; female flowers solitary; calyx tridentate or trifid; ovary sessile, three celled, each cell with a single ovule; style short, thick; stigmas three, simple, spreading; capsule globose, tricoc coos; cocci single-seeded. The species are milky trees or shrubs of the tropical parts of Asia and America, and of the-islands of Bourbon and Mauritius. The leaves are alternate, petiolate. The stillingia sebifera is the famous tallow tree of China, which at one time was introduced into various European colonies in the East and West Indies, and is often met with in hot-houses It grows in China on the borders of rivulets, and is also cultivated. It is about as high as a pear-tree, having a trunk and branches like the cherry, and foliage resembling that of the black poplar, but which turns red in the autumn. The fruit is the part from which the Chinese obtain the tallow. The seed vessels and seeds are bruised and boiled in water, from the surface of which the fat is skimmed on cooling. Wax is generally added to improve the consistence. The candles made from it are of a beautiful white color; but sometimes they are artificially tinged with vermilion. In China the tallow is employed in medicine instead of lard. There
are several species of stillingia in the United States. The S. sylvatka, or queen's root, is an herb of the southern states, growing on dry and sandy soil as far n. as eastern Virginia. The stems are erect, 2 or 3 ft. high, and have nearly sessile, alternate, elliptic, finely serrate, smooth, and spreading leaves. The flowers are small, in dense catkin like spikes, the upper ones with two stamens, the lower ones pistillate, fertile, and with three diverging stigmas ou the thick style. The root has been used in medicine; it is about a foot long, nearly two inches in diameter above, tapering downward, little branched, but somewhat fibrous; fleshy when fresh; compact and wrinkled longitudin ally when dried. It was originally introduced as an emetic and alterative, and has been more or lass used, especially at the south, for the cure of scrofula, syphilis, and skin and hepatic diseases, but at present not much reliance is placed upon it by the more observ ing members of the profession.
is the name applied to that branch of art which concerns itself with the representation of lifeless objects, such as dead animals, fruits, flowers, vases, and house furniture.