is known to have been applied, or indeed to be applicable to any useful purpose, or to be possessed of any notable properties whatever.

(1951.) RHAMNACEE. Rhamnus, the buck-thorn, Paliurus, the Christ's-thorn, Zizyphus, the jujube, and the other genera associated to form this type, are trees or shrubs, with simple, alternate, rarely opposite leaves, and small, free deciduous stipules, which are sometimes wanting. The inflorescence is either axillary or terminal, and seldom solitary. The flowers are united, or monoclinious by abortion. The calyx free or adherent to the germen, synsepalous, 4-5-cleft, and

valvate in æstivation. The petals exserted from the faux of the calyx, alternate with its lobes, cucullate, and convolute in æstivation, and often scale-like or abortive. The stamens definite, opposite the petals when present, and alternate with the sepals; the disk is fleshy, and lines the tube of the calyx. The germen is either free, or more or less adherent to the calyx, and immersed in the fleshy disk, 2-3-4-celled, and the ovules solitary and erect. The styles, equal to the carpels in number, are more or less united, and the stigmata are simple.

The fruit is mostly fleshy and indehiscent, 2-3, or rarely 4-celled, sometimes 1-celled by abortion; but occasionally dry and dehiscent. The seeds are solitary and erect, the albumen fleshy, sometimes evanescent. The embryo large and straight, with an inferior radicle, and flat carneous cotyledons.

(1952.) Hence, differentially considered, the Rhamnacea are a- or apo- petalous Ilicine, with simple stipulate leaves, valvate æstivation of the calyx, stamens opposite the petals or alternate with the sepals, and erect solitary seeds.

(1953.) Paliurus aculeatus, the Christ's-thorn, is a very common plant in Palestine, and is found in most sterile places bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. Tradition affirms that the Saviour's crown of thorns was made of the pliant

branches of this spiny plant, and none could be more fitting for the brutal purpose to which it is said to have been applied. Haselquist however is of opinion that a species of Zizyphus, hence called Z. spina-Christi, is the true Christ's-thorn. The fruit of P. aculeatus resembles a head with a broad brimmed hat on; and the French, from its very singular appearance, call the tree Porte-chapeau. The seeds are sold in the herb and physic shops of Constantinople under the name of Xalle. The hakims or native doctors prescribe them in many complaints, and they are used also as a dye. The plant itself is one of the commonest thorns of the hedges in many parts of Asia, and its flexible spiny branches form fences of a most impassable kind.

(1954.) Rhamnus, the buck-thorn, is said to have been so named from its ramose port. Rhamnus, paμvoç, ramus, rame, and the obsolete French reim, being fancied to be the descendants of an old word, ram, a branch; and Rheims, which is but a slight variation of reim, bears two branches intertwined as the arms of the town.

(1955.) The inner bark and fruit of the Rhamni, as well as of most other plants in the type, are possessed of brisk cathartic powers, and some of them are also emetic and astringent.

(1956.) The young shoots and leaves of R. alaternus will dye wool of a yellow colour. Clusius reports that the fishermen in Portugal dye their nets red with a decoction of its bark, and that dyers there use the wood to strike a blackish blue colour. Evelyn says that its "honey-breathing blossoms afford a marvellous relief to bees," as they open very early in the spring.

(1957.) R. catharticus was formerly used in medicine; but it is a violent griping drastic purgative, and is seldom now employed. The syrup made from the juice of the ripe berries is the officinal preparation: and its action is mitigated by the addition of spice; it however, under any form, produces great dryness of the mouth and fauces, intolerable thirst, and is on the whole an unpleasant medicine. The juice of the unripe berries has the colour of saffron, and is used as a pigment and a dye, and the vert de vessie or sap-green of painters is made by inspissating the juice of the ripe berries to which alum or lime-water and gumarabic has been added. If the berries are gathered late in the season, the colour becomes purple instead of green. The French berries of dyers are the unripe fruit of this plant. The bark also affords a beautiful yellow dye.

(1958.) The bark and berries of R. tinctorius are esteemed as dyes, and the fruit of R. infectorius is the Avignon berry, which is used to give its yellow colour to Turkey or morocco leather. This valuable dye-stuff is also procured from several other species of Rhamnus, such as the amygdalinus, saxatilis, oleoides, buxifolius, and pubescens, which are natives of the Levant, the southern parts of Europe, and the northern rocky ones of Africa. The wood of Rhamnus Erythroxylon is of an orange colour, and that of R. Lycioides of a fine red. This latter, on account of its hue and hardness, is used by the Monguls to make their images.

(1959.) R. Frangula is, like most of the other species, purgative, if taken internally, and affords both from its bark and berries serviceable dyes. Half an ounce of the liber, or a few of the berries boiled in beer, form a brisk cathartic, which is said to be very certain in its action on cattle; and both this plant and R. catharticus are esteemed in veterinary practice, to which it were well they

should be confined. Goats devour the leaves voraciously, and sheep will eat them. The flowers are, like those of R. alaternus, particularly grateful to bees. The bark will dye yellow, or, with preparations of iron, strike a good black. The unripe berries will dye wool yellow, when ripe green, and if gathered late and very ripe, the colour becomes blue. Charcoal made from the wood is much esteemed in the manufacture of gunpowder.

(1960.) The leaves of R. (now Segeretia) Theezans, which resemble those of the common tea, are said by Osbeck to be used as a substitute for genuine tea by the poor people in China, who call them Tia. They are aromatic and slightly astringent.

(1961.) The celebrated Lotus of the Lotophagi is the Zizyphus Lotus of modern botany, its present generic name being a variation of Zizouf, its Arabic appellation. It is a native of Persia, and grows wild in the interior of Africa, as well as on the sea-coast in the neighbourhood of Tunis; not being by any means so confined in its distribution as was conjectured by the Greeks; and the fruit is universally eaten by the inhabitants wherever it grows. Dr. Shaw says this fruit is common in the deserts and other parts of Barbary, and is still in great repute and sold in the markets all over the southern districts, and cattle as well as men are fed upon it. Park states that he found the Lotus abundant in all the countries of Africa he traversed, but in the greatest plenty in the kingdoms of Kaarta, Ludamar, and the northern parts of Bambara. The natives, he says, convert the fruit into a sort of bread, by exposing it some days to the sun, and afterwards pounding it gently in a mortar until the farinaceous part is separated from the stone. This meal is then mixed with a little water and made into cakes, which, when dried in the sun, resemble in colour and flavour the sweetest gingerbread. The stones are afterwards put into a vessel of water, and shaken about, so as to separate all the farina that adheres to them. An agreeable taste is thus given to the liquid, which, by the addition of a little pounded millet, is made into a kind of gruel called fondi, and this, for several months in the year, forms the common breakfast of the majority of the people in many parts of Ludamar. The fruit when dried is laid by for winter use; a sort of wine is also made from it by expression and mixing the juice with water. It is a pleasant drink, but will not keep many days. Some persons have conjectured that this wine is the same liquor which is fabled to have produced such extraordinary effects on the companions of Ulysses, as described by Homer:

"The trees around them all their food produce;

Lotos, the name divine, nectareous juice,
Thence called Lotophagi, which whoso tastes,

Insatiate riots in their sweet repasts,

Nor other home nor other care intends,

But quits his house, his country, and his friends."

(1962.) Zizyphus spina Christi, which Haselquist thinks to be the true Christ'sthorn, bears a fruit of a pleasant flavour, that is esteemed as food in Egypt and Arabia. The fruit of several other species is esculent, and more or less palatable. The kernels of Z. Xylopyrus taste like nuts, and the leaves and shoots are eaten by cattle. Z. Napeca is very acid and astringent, and the berries are chiefly used

as sauce for fish, or to eat with salted provisions. Z. orthocantha is eaten by the natives of Senegal, and a sort of wine made from it as from the lote.

(1963.) The Jujube, which is a favourite dessert in Italy and Spain, either fresh or dried as a sweetmeat, is the fruit of Z. vulgaris and Z. Jujuba, and a pleasant pectoral lozenge is made of it by the French pharmaciens. The fruit is to be seen in abundance in the markets of Constantinople and the southern parts of Europe. The Turks call it Hunnab-agaghi, and plant the trees before their coffee-honses, that they may enjoy both their shade and fruit. It is said that the Z. vulgaris was introduced into Italy from Syria by Sextus Pampinius, in the time of Augustus.

(1964.) The leaves of Ceanothus Americanus form the New Jersey tea, and are used in some parts of North America instead of the Chinese leaf. The root is said to be astringent, and it will dye wool of a nankeen or cinnamon colour.

(1965.) The wood of Scutia Sarcomphalos is hard, of a dark colour, and close grained; and is regarded as one of the best timbers of Jamaica. The roots of Berchemia volubilis are prescribed with advantage in cachectic disorders, and the peduncles of the Hovenia dulcis et inæqualis, which, after the petals have fallen, become enlarged and succulent, and filled with a sweet red pulp, have something the flavour of a pear, and are esteemed as a fruit by the Japanese. This peculiar development of the fruit-stalk, which is here found in a state of anamorphosis, is evidently an anticipation of the fruit of the cashew nut, and foreshadows the cynarhodon and the pome.

TEREBINTHINÆ.

(1966.) As parasitic plants were once considered to be the protruded entrails of the trees and herbs on which they grow, and hence were called viscera, the misletoe being named, according to its site, the viscus quercus, viscus oxyacanthi, &c.; and the dodders, viscera diaboli; so the various gums and resins exuding naturally from numerous plants were sometimes regarded as their excrements. The turpentines were amongst the more valuable of these vegetable excrements; and, from their being in general procured by boring holes, or in some way wounding the wood and bark, especially in the pistacias, it has been supposed, perhaps without much probability, that they derived their name. For terebinth, tereminth, and terminth, Τερέβινθος, Τερεμινθος, τέρμινθος, whence the Latin terebinthus and terebinthinus, and the English turpentine, are all but slight variations of the same word, which speculative etymologists believe to be a compound of Tepew and μίνθος.

(1967.) The cashew nut (Anacardium or Cassuvium), the balsam trees (Bursera), and the hog-plum (Spondias), are the normal genera of the three types, Cassuviaceæ, Burseracea, and Spondiace, included in this section. Whether the Connaraceæ should be associated with the foregoing types is questionable, as they are transitional

to the following section, from which indeed they are scarcely to be distinguished. Along with the above-named groups Bartling has arranged the Quassias, Oranges, and Rues; but, although many points of similitude may be traced, they are probably those of analogy rather than of affinity; and hence, adopting the opinion of De Candolle, they are here, on account of the hypogynous exsertion of the stamens and petals, referred to in the sub-order Rheadose.

(1968.) The TEREBINTHINE, differentially considered, are resiniferous myrtosæ, with mostly exstipulate dotted leaves, and imbricate æstivation of the calyx; superior ovaries, few in number, exalbuminous seeds, and the radicle of the embryo turned towards the hilum.

(1969.) CASSUVIACEE or ANACARDIACEÆ. Anacardium, Pistacia, Rhus, Schinus, and their allies, which are associated to form this type, are trees or Anacardium or Cassuvium Occidentale.

(A.) Branch bearing leaves, flowers and fruit, in various stages, shewing the gradual enlargement of the peduncle. (a,a,a) Leaves impunctate. (b) Axillary panicles of flowers. (c,c) Immature fruit with small peduncle. (d) Mature fruit with enlarged peduncle. (e) The nuts. (B) Section of the nut.

shrubs, abounding with resinous or gummy sap; hence, sometimes lactescent, and their juices occasionally caustic and highly poisonous. The leaves are alternate, simple or compound, exstipulate and impunctate. The inflorescence is either