an appellation given to plants abounding with a milky juice, as the sow thistle and the like. The name of lactiferous, or lactescens, is given to all those plants which abound with a thick coloured juice, without regarding whether it is white or not. Most lactiferous plants are poisonous, except those with compound flowers, which are generally of an innocent quality.

Of the poisonous lactescent plants the most remarkable are sumach, agaric, maple, burning thorny plant, cassada, celandine, puccoon, prickly poppy, and the plants of the natural order contortae, as swallow-wort, apocynum, cynanchum, and cerbera.

The bell-shaped flowers are partly noxious, as cardinal flower; partly innocent, as campanula.

Among the lactescent plants with compound flowers that are innocent in their quality, may be mentioned dandelion, pieris, hyoseris, wild lettuce, gum succory, hawkweed, bastard hawkweed, hypochaeris, goat's beard, and most species of lettuce: we say most species, because the prickly species of that genus are said to be of a very virulent and poisonous nature; though Mr Lightfoot denies this, and affirms that they are a safe and gentle opiate, and that a syrup made from the leaves and stalks is much preferable to the common diacodium.