SESAMUM, OILY GRAIN, in botany, a genus of the angiospermia order, belonging to the didynamia class of plants. The species are, 1. The orientale, with oblong, oval, entire bases: it is cultivated in great plenty in the Levant, but is supposed to have been brought there from India. It is an annual plant, rising with an herbaceous four-cornered stalk, two feet high, sending out a few short side-branches; the leaves are oblong, oval, a little hairy, and stand opposite. The flowers terminate the stalks in loose spikes; they are small, of a dirty white colour, shaped somewhat like those of the foxglove. After the flowers are past, the germin turns to an oval acute-pointed capsule with four cells, filled with oval compressed seeds, which ripen in autumn. 2. The indicum, with trifid lower leaves, grows naturally in India: this is also an an-
nnal plant; the stalk rises taller than that of the former; the lower leaves are cut into three parts, which is the only difference between them. 3. The trifoliatum, with all the leaves trifid; grows naturally in Africa. This is also an annual plant, with a taller and more branched stalk than that of the former, in which it differs from both the other.
The first sort is frequently cultivated in all the eastern countries, and also in Africa, as a pulse; and of late years the seeds have been introduced into Carolina by the African negroes, where they succeed extremely well. The inhabitants of that country make an oil from the seed, which will keep good many years, without having any rancid smell or taste, but in two years becomes quite mild; so that when the warm taste of the seed, which is in the oil when first drawn, is worn off, they use it as a salad-oil, and for all the purposes of sweet oil. The seeds of this plant are also used by the negroes for food; which seeds they parch over the fire, and then mix them with water, and stew other ingredients with them, which makes an hearty food. Sometimes a sort of pudding is made of these seeds, in the same manner as with millet or rice, and is by some persons esteemed, but is rarely used for these purposes in Europe. This is called benny, or bonny, in Carolina. In England these plants are preserved in botanic gardens as curiosities. Their seeds must be sown in the spring upon a hot-bed; and when the plants are come up, they must be transplanted into a fresh hot-bed to bring them forward. After they have acquired a tolerable degree of strength, they should be planted into pots, and plunged into another hot-bed, managing them as hath been directed for amaranthuses; for if these plants are not thus brought forward in the former part of the summer, they will not produce good seeds in this country.
The seeds of the first sort is mentioned in the list of officinal simples in the college dispensatory, but is rarely used in medicine in England. From nine pounds of this seed which came from Carolina, there were upwards of two quarts of oil drawn, which is as great a quantity as hath been obtained from any vegetable whatever. This might occasion its being called the oily grain.