in botany: A genus of the polyandria order, belonging to the dioecia clas of plants. The male calyx is almost pentaphyllous; there is no corolla; the stamens are 20 in number; the female calyx is almost pentaphyllous; no corolla; the stamens 20, and barren; the capsules from 4 to 7, polyspermous. Mefferschmidius, in the Iris Siberica, gives it the following character and name: *Cimicifuga foetida*, with the leaves of the herb Christopher, bearing a thyrsis of yellow male flowers with a red villous seed, the seed-vessel in form of a horn. This whole plant resembles the *Actaea racemosa*, that it is difficult to distinguish them when not in flower; but in the fructification it greatly differs from it, the cimicifuga having four pistils, the actea but one. Jacquin says, that it is a native of the Carpathian mountains. It has obtained the name of *cimicifugas* or *bugbane*, both in Siberia and Tartary, from its property of driving away those insects; and the botanists of those parts of Europe which are infected by them, have long desired to naturalise it in their several countries. Gmelin mentions, that in Siberia the natives also use it as an evacuant in dropsy; and that its effects are violently emetic and draughtic.