CEBADI'LLA, CEVADILLA, or SABADILLA, tho Spanish-Mexi can name for a species of Ferafrunt, the seeds of which are an article of considerable importance in consequence of their having been found to contain a considerable quantity of Verstria. Much interest has been excited about this drug, from the obscurity that is supposed to hang about its origin. It has always been understood to come from Mexico.
Retains, who first referred the Cebadilla to Veratrurn, had no better materials to describe it from than a bit of the inflorescence which he found among a sample of the seeds. Smith, under reratrum (in 1819), traced out itcsynonyma in Recta's C-yelopeedia,' but without throwing much light uPon its history. F6e, in 1828, knew no more about it than what Retina had stated, adding that the meaning of the word was Little Oat—Cebadilla being a diminution of Cebada, the Spanish for Oat. He considered it was fit for use as a horse-medicine, and to destroy vermin. At a later period Descourtilz referred, in his Fiore dee Antilles,' the rerstrunt Sabadilla of Retains to a West Indian plant; and shortly after if was ascertained that there wait also a Mexican Cebadilla, which corresponded entirely with the seeds of the shops. Thus again Mexico was fixed as the undoubted origin of that valuable production in which the principle Verstria is found more concentrated than in any known plant. Dr. Schiede discovered it in grassy places near the Hacienda do la Laguna in Barranea de Tioselo, on the eastern declivity of the Mexican table-land ; and it has been since described by Schlechtendabl and Chemise° under the name of reratrum officinal& Lindley has constituted a new genus for this plant, and calls it Asagnra officinalis. It has the following chime tern :—Root bulbous; plant usually growing in tufts; leaves linear, tapering to the point, even, quite smooth, entire, channeled on the upper aide, keeled at the back, four feet long, rather weak ; scope naked, as high as a man, quite simple, terminated by a raceme a fool and a half long ; perianth deeply 6-parted, spreading, yellowish, small, persistent, with thick blunt linear segments, of which three are realm broader than the others ; filaments six, somewhat club-shaped, yel lowish, inserted into the base of the perianth, the three that are oppa site to the broader segments rather longer than the others, and at longer than the perianth ; anthers rather large, yellow, cordate at the base, obtuse ; pollen yellow ; ovary superior, consisting of three car psis united by their sutures; styles very short; fruit tricapeular, the capsules adhering by their suture, but readily separated ; lower flower( hermaphrodite and fertile, upper male, and sterile on account of the abortion of the ovary ; flowers have the smell of the Common Bar berry. This plant produces the true Mexican Cebadille or Sabadilla
which is now extensively employed in making the alkaloid Veratria But in the shops there appear to be seeds of two distinct species, ono of which is the F. Sabadilla, the other the plant now described, which differs in having linear keeled channeled, and not ribgmas-like leaves yellow and not purple flowers, segments of the perianth linear am shorter than the filaments, and not ovate or lanceolate, and lenge than the filaments. Nearly related to this is a F. frigielum, found it the alpine regions of Orizaba, where it flowers in September : thi has blackish-brown flowers, and is reckoned a poisonous plant by thy Mexicans, who call it Sevoeja. It is referred by Lindley to the gam Het onias. cVERATRUM ; HYLONIAS.)