California Academy of Sciences é RECEIVED BY GIFT FROM Ge P. Rixford Bequest December 2, 1931 Plate iy Fiteh del et hith F. Reeve imp Tea Plant 2. Coffee Plant. 3,Cocoa Elame; +t Rice Piant § Suger Came. GLU igo POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY; OR DESCRIPTION OF THE BOTANICAL AND COMMERCIAL CHARACTERS OF THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF VEGETABLE ORIGIN, USED FOR FOOD, CLOTHING, TANNING, DYEING, BUILDING, MEDICINE, PERFUMERY, ETC. BY THOMAS CROXEN ARCHER, COLLECTOR OF THE LIVERPOOL IMPORTS EXHIBITED AT THE GREAT INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1851, AND APPOINTED COLLECTOR FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED BOTANY IN THE NEW CRYSTAL PALACE, SYDENHAM. LONDON : REEVE AND CO., HENRIETTA STREET, CO 1853. JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, PRINTER, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS. Wins. See ey ee DEC. 2. 1931 & P, BIkrORD SEQUEST 27004 TO JOSEPH DICKENSON, M.D., ‘ PRESIDENT OF THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF LIVERPOOL, AND AUTHOR OF THE ‘FLORA OF LIVERPOOL;’ AND BRAITHWAITE POOLE, ESQ. AUTHOR OF ‘STATISTICS OF BRITISH COMMERCE,’ This Little Dolume IS WITH SINCERE ESTEEM DEDICATED, BY THEIR GRATEFUL FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. PREFACEH.- Seen Ir will appear strange to many when they hear for the first time that no popular work has yet appeared, devoted exclusively to the commercial products of the Vegetable Kingdom; much however has been written, and written well, in various large works, by several authors upon Botany and Materia Medica, especially by Sir William Hooker, Dr. Royle, Dr. Lindley, and Dr. Pereira, and from their writings much of the information contained in this volume is derived. I am more particularly indebted to the last-mentioned gen- tleman. No one has done so much as Dr. Pereira towards dissipating the cloud of ignorance which envelopes the his- tory of vegetable products; and it is much to be regretted that, by his melancholy death, the splendid edition of his large work should have been left unfinished; it is however VI PREFACE. in able hands, and will, doubtless, be completed in a manner worthy of the author. Vegetable products constitute nine-twelfths of the whole commerce in raw produce which employs the vast mercan- tile marine of this great kingdom. They furnish us with the bulk of our food and clothing, our medicine and our building materials, and with many other necessaries and luxuries. It may be argued, that most of the benefits we derive from the vegetable kingdom have been discovered without the aid of science. ‘True, but is not this a great and powerful argument in favour of the application of scientific investigation in this department ? for if so much has been done without its aid, how much may we not hope will be effected when the principles of scientific research, which have effected such miracles in every other depart- ment, are brought to bear upon that of Economie Botany ? Had not a scientific and practical botanist discovered the Gutta Percha, how many benefits would perhaps have been lost to civilization (unless some other article supplied its place in the submarine telegraphs) ; and, latterly, the inves- PREFACE. vil tigations of botanists have added hundreds of articles to our list of commercial products. What is still in store for us we know not, but we are certain that vast fields for discovery are still untouched, and remain to reward the scientific investigator. _ ? I was preparing to enter very fully into the commercial statistics of the articles described, when the glaring discre- pancies which met me in the different works professing to give this kind of information, almost led me to abandon the idea of giving any statistical details. The appearance of a work by my friend Mr. Braithwaite Poole, upon the Statistics of British Commerce, has however led to the removal in a great measure of my difficulties in this particular, and it will be seen. that I have availed myself largely of his publica- ’ tion; besides this, I am indebted to him for other useful information, which he kas obtained for me through his ex- tensive railway connections. The classification adopted in the following pages is simple, being a mere division into groups, and the botanical in- formation is slight; they are, however, sufficient to show, Vill PREFACE. along with the account of the uses of the articles described, that quality and price do not constitute the only interesting points in their history. My experience in matters connected with commercial materials has been somewhat extensive: besides twelve years’ employment in the Import department of the Cus- toms, which has brought me into contact with most of the articles of foreign produce, I also formed the extensive col- lection of Liverpool Imports which was exhibited at the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1851, for which I received the Prize Medal and Certificate. Since then I have been acting for the directors of the New Crystal Palace at Sy- denham, as their agent for the collection of raw produce ; and in these occupations I have obtained some information which I"trust may be useful, and obtain for me a lenient judgment for the literary defects of the book. T.C. A. HicHER TRANMERE, CHESHIRE, May, 1853. 4 LIST OF PLATES. ——~ Pruate I. Fig. Page Fig. Page | 17 Guava plant ....,........ 43 Rhee Pisth soos ek ees 118 | 18 Great American Cran- Becatce plant: ............. 129 béery ss stk POS 48 3 Cocoa plant ............. 134 | 19 Pomegranate ............ 33 a, lace plant................ 11 & Sugar Cane.............. 135 Puate V. ZO) Rapes 34 5s oes ds ee 44, Prats Il. 21 Prickly Pear .......:.. 44, MPM AIAE: 52855 FNo Te cvs 9.1 22 Pig. 2 253 eel ee 26 7 Buckwheat............... 16 | 23: Peecan, Nut. 5 5.4208. 64, 8 Long Pepper............ 103 | 24 Hickory Nut............ 64 9 Black Pepper............ 102 | 25 Pistachio Nut ........... 57 me Clove plant............... 98 Puate VI. Prats IIT. 26 Sapucaia Nut....... we 8 11 Nutmeg plant .......... 95: | 27 Bran Nutic iad 51 12 Ginger plant........ So. te” | 28 Surahwa Nut..........., 54 13 Cinnamon plant......... 88 | 29 Cashew Nut ............ 55 14 Allspice plant ........... 100 | S0°Almond °, 2 (tee 67 31 Ground Nut ...... 65, 270 Puate IV. 15 Tamarind plant..,...... 42 Puate VII. 16 Olive plant .......... 34, 264 | 32 Cotton plant ..........,. 170 x LIST OF Fig. Page Sa tat Plat oy i.ssds. es 148 PU MEIAD oro eset ce vente 151 227 PT Ree ec i RR 156 Bo Un FeMp cs inn 158 37 China Grass .=....;.... 163 Pruate VIII. 38 Carnauba Palm ......... 281 30: Rattan Palm 2 7.000).2). 167 41 Manilla Plantain ...... 158 ae The Oi Palm 3 ,.<.4: 261 Pruate IX. A3 Sago Palm ...,:6:........ 81 44. Cocoa-nut Palm 67,161,263 45 American Aloe ......... 160 46 Gomuti Palm ...... 140, 164 Ae Wake Palys, oi. tena sss 30 * Prats X. 49 Vegetable Ivory Palm 296 50 Vegetable Ivory Nut 296 51 Section of ditto ......... 296 52 Coquilla Nut ............ 297 53 The Nut turned ........ 297 PuatE XI. 53 Arrowroot plant ...... 76 PLATES. Fig. Page 54 Turmeric plant, with starch tubers .......... es 54a Section of rhizome... 77 55 Section of Starchtuber 77 56 Granuies of Wheat Starch "4 (2) Urea ae 57 Granules of. Potato Staren ... «2s 207 qo Munjeet ...........00..0:. 211 Poeeumach .......:.... 208, 220 ee 209 Pratt XVI. or Cardamom.......,....... 322 82 Castor Oil Seed......... 321 83 Iris or Orrice Root .... 300 Bae euschouly ;...........0055 299 85 Camphor tree............ 314 Bee rax Vomiica.........:...: 314, Pratt XVII. 87 Senna shrub ...... als, 18 88 Peruvian Bark tree.... 318 89 Jalap plant 316 en ee ee ey xi Fig. Page 90 Scammony plant....... 310 91 Liquorice plant........ 313 Pirate XVIII. 92 Gum Benzoin .......... 301 OS Marmasse co 312 94 India Rubber plant... 253 95 Gutta Percha plant... 255 96 Piece of Raw Gutta HOOMGNA FeAl Panes 256 Pirate XIX. 97 Turpentine tree ....... 249 98 Canada Balsam tree . 251 99 Piney Tallow tree .... 281 100 Tar and Pitch tree 251, 252 TOL: Faniper is... 274, 298 PuatE XX. 102 Mahogany tree........ 330 103 Lignum Vite tree .... 336 104 Cedar tree (Pencil) ... 333 105 Gum tree 340 pene reer nnee ERRATA. Ret | In Prats X., the figures numbered 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, should be num- " bered 48, 49, 50, 51, 52: they are referred to by the correct numbers in Fe the descriptive portion of the Work. + In Prate XIX., for Gum Dammar, read Piney Tallow Tree. na, CONTENTS. ieee DIVISION I. SUBSTANCES USED FOR FOOD. CHAPTER I. PAGE DEGEMACHOUS PRODUCTS \. ce a er ew 1 CHAPTER IT. Ms gE MET ARE Ooo. on ea CHAPTER IIT. NUTS moet ee kek Sie eee ee 50 | CHAPTER IV. meeuees OG STARCHES. (05 fh Suet, Le CHAPTER V. Es ee Sh ees ey ee ORAS re 87 CHAPTER VI. MERCRELANMEOUS ARTICHES. 26 «cs ees tare -p) EI8 X1V CONTENTS. DIVISION II. PRODUCTS EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTURES. CHAPTER VIL. PAGE VEGETABLES USED FOR TEXTILE FABRICS . .-. . 4g DIVISION III. MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS USED IN THE ARTS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES. CHAPTER VIII. PAG NG MA TERUADS 2+. 32.4 eu fut. Deh LAS eee CHAPTER IX. BATERIALS USED IN WYERING 5 Aleth oS oe Oe eee CHAPTER X. GUMS USED IN THE ARTS Ave Jobs olse | eas een, CHAPTER XI. OFLS, OLL-SEEDS, “ETC. | cp Ak oe ee se, CHAPTER XII. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES Sade Wate Feet cee ke) ee cs DIVISION IV. MATERIA MEDICA. CHAPTER XIII. ~ SCELLANEOUS MEDICINAL PRODUCTS. DEVISION: ¥. CONSTRUCTIVE MATERIALS. CHAPTER XIV. « an > * i BUILDING AND FURNITURE WoODs . a a. ere ~ oe to “4, = aes a i 2 ae ee ae “o§ POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. CHAPTER I. SUBSTANCES USED FOR FOOD. FARINACEOUS PRODUCTS. WuHEeEN the fiat went forth, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,’ Almighty Justice pronounced a deserved sentence; but, much as fallen man had offended his Divine Creator, he was not forgotten entirely: labour, it is true, had become his lot, but the fruitful earth was left, as before the fall, clothed with every necessary for man’s wants, and re- quiring only the full exercise of those powers with which his Maker had gifted him, for their development. The class of substances which come under this chapter are peculiarly of this character: the staple food of more Pv —~ B 2 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. than four-fifths of the human race is formed from the small grains of various grasses, which, even if they required no more labour than merely collecting and preparing, would at least enforce industry ; but requiring, as they do, careful cultivation in well-worked soil, it is indeed only with the sweat of the brow that we can eat the bread which is neces- sary to our existence. ; Foremost in the rank of food-products, and especially of those called cereals, stands WuxEat, too well known to re- quire any particular description. It is a true grass (be- longing to the Natural Order Graminacee), but has been so changed by cultivation that we are totally ignorant of its natural state*. Botanists have named it Zriticum hybernum, or Triticum vulgare, variety B hybernum, Winter Wheat,— this is the commonest kind of wheat; another, which is almost as well known, is called Zritecum vulgare, variety a astivum, or Summer Wheat. The former is biennial in its habits—that is, it is sown one year and flowers and fruits * Unless the experiments of M. Fabre may be relied upon. He states that he found by successive experiments upon the apparently insignifi- cant grass Agilops ovata, that it first sported (as gardeners call it) to 43, triticoides, and from that, by successive changes, extending over seve- ral years, it passed to wheat itself,—not so fine as our highly cultivated varieties, but nevertheless wheat it was, unmistakeably. WHEAT. 05 the year following; but the latter is sown and perfected all im one year. Much discussion has arisen amongst scientific men, as to the native country of the wheat; the evidence however ap- pears to be in favour of a district of Russia in Asia, inha- bited by the Bashkirs, where it is supposed the wheat-plant has been found growing wild. This district is in the Russian Government of Orenburg, and is inhabited by a warlike race of. men, of Turco-Mongolian origin, who are admirable cultivators of various kinds of: grain, and are particularly celebrated both for their excellent management of bees, and bravery im defending the Kirghiz steppe for the Emperor. If this Tartar province is indeed the original country of the Zrztzcum vulgare, the culture of which em- ploys millions of our fellow-men, and the produce of which feeds hundreds of millions, it should be to us the most in- teresting spot on the globe, instead of an almost unknown corner of the Czar’s dominions. Besides the two varieties mentioned, there are several others which are occasionally grown, viz. variety d, T. turgi- dum (a name which signifies swod/en), the ear is short and irregularly thick ; variety c, 7. turgidum compositum, this is not only short and thick, but several small secondary ears 4 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. take their rise from the principal ear, giving the appearance of a small bunch of ears. It is the Mummy Wheat, which has latterly excited so much curiosity, in consequence of a statement having been circulated, that it originated from some grains found in the hand of an Egyptian mummy, where it had lam many centuries without germinating, but upon being sown produced plants, from which the seed now termed mummy wheat was raised. This tale is however generally disbelieved; mummy wheat has always been the chief kind cultivated in Egypt and Abyssinia, and much also is grown in Greece; some botanists have thought it a distinct genus, In consequence of the compound structure of its ear, but this character is not found to be permanent. The other kinds are the Polish Wheat (Zriticum Poloni- cum): though called Polish wheat, it 1s more extensively cul- tivated in Northern Africa than elsewhere; Spelt Wheat (Triticum Spelta), and the One-grained Wheat (7. monococ- cum), the ear of which is small, compressed, and only two- rowed, like barley, are not much cultivated. Wheat is im- ported chiefly for the purpose of being ground into flour for making bread ; large quantities are also consumed in the manufacture of fine starch, and as flour in dressing cotton fabrics. It comes to us from almost all parts of the globe: OATS. 5 the finest of the European kinds is from Dantzic, the grain of which is large, white, and very thin-skinned; besides almost every port in Europe and North America, we receive it from Northern Africa, the East Indies, Australia, and oc- casionally from the Brazils. The quantity of wheat grown in the United Kingdom is about 144,000,000 bushels, or 18,000,000 quarters; in addition to this we import nearly 4,000,000 quarters*. In Great Britain it is estimated that 5,000,000 acres of land are annually covered with this grain. The next of the cereals in importance is the Oat—Ave- na sativa—the use of which is also very ancient; it is not however mentioned in the Scriptures, although frequently referred to by Grecian and Roman writers ; Dioscorides and Pliny both mention it. It is a true grass (Graminacec), _ and is one of the most beautiful of its tribe: nothing can exceed the graceful elegance of the oat, with its large pa- nicles of flowers hanging from their hair-like pedicels. Although known to the ancients, there is no reason to believe that this kind of grain was common, for even at an early period of the Christian era the tyrant Caligula is re- ported to have fed his horses with gilded oats: we can hardly * Vide Braithwaite Poole’s Statistics of British Commerce (Art. Corn). 6 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. imagine the oats mentioned were literally gilded, but must presume the expression applied to the golden colour of the grain. Many varieties of the oat are cultivated, but the princi- pal ones are the White, and the Black or Tartarian oat ; both are annual plants. One called the Potato Oat is a great favourite in Scotland. In the admirable synopsis published by Peter Lawson and Son, the eminent Edinburgh seedsmen, - sixty varieties are mentioned. The quantity of oats im- ported is very inferior to that of wheat: in 1850 we received 1,165,876 quarters, nearly all of which came from the northern ports of Hurope; but the quantity cultivated in Great Britain far exceeds that of all other cereal grains added together; the total quantity given for England, [re land, and Scotland, in Poole’s Statistics, being 30,500,000 quarters, or 244,000,000 bushels. In the northern parts of the kingdom the oat forms the staple article of human food ; but its greatest use is in feed- ing horses. When the bran, or outer integument of the grains, is removed, they are called ‘Groats,’ or when skinned and partially crushed, “ Embden Groats,” which are much used in making the light and easily digested invalid diet called gruel. BARLEY. 7 Barty. Hordeum distichon. (Nat. Ord. Graminacea.) Another grass, the seeds of which are of immense import- ance to man; besides this, the common species, there are three others more or less cultivated. Barley has long figured as an economic product of the Vegétable Kingdom. Amongst the Egyptians it was well known, and its discovery and first culture was by Diodorus Siculus and others at- tributed to Osiris. Pliny, in his ‘ Natural History,’ says barley was the most ancient food of mankind. In the Book of Exodus, dating fifteen hundred years before Christ, we find it mentioned as an ordinary crop, thus, in ch. ix., verse 31, “And the flax and the darley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled;” and we find it again mentioned in Ruth u. 17, “She gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.” Its native country is un- known, but by some authors is supposed to be Tartary. The common names of the four species are Long-eared or Common Barley (H. distichon), Spring Barley (ZH. vulgare), Winter Barley (4. hewastichon), and Sprat or Battledore Barley (Z. zeocriton). 'The Spring barley is in Scotland usually styled Bere or Bigg; it is an inferior kind, but valuable from its thriving on poor soil and in exposed localities. 8 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. ‘Barley is not so much used for food now as formerly. Barley-bread, once the common food of the poorer classes, is rarely seen in this country; its great use is in making beer and spirits. For beer it is first madted, (a process which consists in inducing germination in the grain,) by soaking it in water and applying heat; this causes the barley to shoot, and as soon as vitality is once commenced, the starch which existed abundantly in the grain is converted into sugar, which, if fermented, is easily convertible into the half-vinous beer, or, by a little increased fermentation, into alcohol. The quantity grown in the United Kingdom is very large, amounting to nearly 10,000,000 quarters; but the imports are comparatively small, being only 51,000 quarters in 1851, all from the north of Kurope. Ryxz. Secale cereale. (Nat. Ord. Graminacea.) A native of the Caucaso-Caspian Desert. It is much cul- tivated in the North of Europe, where it enters largely into the food of the inhabitants; it is highly nutritive, but nevertheless is not much used in this country, where a pre- judice exists against it, arising very probably from the serious and fatal accidents which have been occasioned by the vege- table poison called Ergot of Rye. The ergot is a fungous plant which affects the grain, considerably altering its di- 8. Long Pepper. Buck -wheat . 10. Clove Plant. he 9. Black Pepper. Maize. a INDIAN CORN. 9 Mnensions and appearance; the diseased grain being usually about an inch in length and of a jet-black colour. When mixed with the rye in large quantities—which happens some seasons—its effects are very dreadful, giving rise to ulcera- tion and mortification of the extremities- These injurious “effects could hardly happen now that the means of cleaning grain and the methods of cultivating it are so much im- proved; nevertheless it is far less cultivated than its other- wise wholesome qualities would seem to demand. The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1849 was 241,613 quarters, and in 1850 94,078 quarters. (Poole’s Statistics.) ~ Inpran Corn—Matze. Zea Mays. (Nat. Ord. Grami- naceé.) (Plate II. fig. 6.) A native of Tropical America. Within the last century this grain has become of immense importance to the human family, furnishing, in countries adapted to its cultivation, enormous quantities of a wholesome and nutritive diet. Its culture has spread over the whole of the American continent, throughout most parts of Asia and Africa, and the southern parts of Hurope; it is remarkably prolific, and is cultivated with less labour probably than any other grain. Its culture has led to the production of numerous varieties, amongst 10 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. which the most conspicuous are the Large White, the Large Yellow, and the Red American sorts, and the Small Yellow of Southern Europe. Owing to its deficiency in gluten, maize is not well adapted for making bread ; it is however made into cakes, which are much esteemed in North America. Throughout the whole of the American continent and islands it enters largely into the common food of the people, m a great variety of ways. Like oats, it is reduced to meal, the pericarp or bran re- maining mixed with the flour. In the preparation called homminy, the grain is first soaked, and then exposed to a drying heat, which causes the bran to crack and peel off, it is then easily separated: in this state it is much used for puddings and other dishes. Pop-corn is another prepa- ration, made by slightly baking the unripe grains, which makes them turn inside out, giving them the appearance of tapioca: this is also a favourite method of using the corn. Several attempts have been made, but without success, to cultivate maize in England: our summer is too short, and our autumn too humid; it is however extensively imported from the United States and Italy, and used for feeding cat- tle, etc., but is not regarded with much favour as human food. The imports in 1847 (the year in which the potato- a RICE. tft crop failed) were 3,614,637 quarters; in 1850, 1,286,263 quarters*. The maize belongs to the Class Monecia and Order Triandria of Linnzeus, because, like a few others of the Graminacee, it has its stamens and pistils in different flowers on the same plant; the staminiferous flowers are borne in a tuft on the summit of the plant, the pistilliferous ones rise from the axils of the leaves, which, as in most grasses, are sessile along an unbranched stem. ‘The peri- anth, or floral envelope, of the pistil flower, remains until the grain ripens, and in the South of Europe is very exten- sively used in packing oranges and lemons; it is also used in South America by the Spaniards in making cigarrettos, for which purpose the very thin Indian corn covers are se- lected, and small squares are cut from them, in which the tobacco is rolled. These perianths have also been manufac- tured into very good paper. Rice. Oryza satwa. (Nat. Ord. Graminacee.) (Plate I. fig. 4.) : This useful grain is a native of the East Indies, whence it has spread to all the warm parts of Asia, Africa, and the southern parts of America; its habit of growth is very much hike the oat, the grain hanging gracefully from the very * Poole’s Statistics. 12g POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. thin hair-like pedicels of an elegant loose panicle, less how- ever than that of the Oat. Although several ill effects, and even cholera* itself, have been attributed to the use of this food, nevertheless these accusations are not well-founded, for, on the contrary, rice appears from its astringency to be admirably adapted to the use of the natives of warm cli- mates, where it usually constitutes the staple food of the lower classes. Its antiquity is very great: ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters, and it shall return to thee after many days,” evidently applies to rice, which, in Egypt, 1s always sown whilst the waters of the Nile still cover the surface of the land; the returning floods leave a thick deposit of rich alluvial sz/¢, in which the rice vegetates luxuriantly, being naturally a marsh plant. The rice from the Southern States of North America is decidedly the best, beng much sweeter, larger, and better-coloured than that of Asia, where its cul- tivation is less carefully managed. The States of Carolina produce the best American, and Patna the best Hast Indian rice. Like wheat and other grain, the rice is that particular * In the ‘ Lancet,’ 1833-4, vol. i, Dr. Tytler attributes malignant cholera to the use of rice as food, in consequence of which he named the disease morbus oryzeus. GUINEA CORN, 15 form of fruit which is called a caryopsis: its characters are that the pericarp or seed-covering appears to cover the seed so closely as to form a portion of it: thus the seed-vessel of the wheat is the brown covering which constitutes the bran, and cannot be removed without breaking the enclosed white seed; in the rice however the pericarp is not so closely adherent, and can be removed by slight pressure, which causes it to split and come off without injuring the enclosed seed. It often comes to us in the husk, and is then called paddy, an Indian name. In this country immense quan- tities are consumed, but rather as a luxury, in the form of puddings and confectionery, than as a principal article of food. In India a species of arrack, or strong spirit, is dis- tilled from paddy. The straw has lately been much used in plaiting for ladies’ bonnets. The beautiful Chinese ma- nufacture called rice-paper is erroneously supposed to be manufactured from this grain: its proper sony will appear in another chapter. The quantity of rice imported into Great Britain in 1851, according to Poole’s Statistics, was 41,121 tons; but of this enormous quantity a large proportion is again ex- ported to our North American colonies and to the countries of Northern Europe. 14 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Guinea Corn, Darra, Durra, or Turkish Millet, called in India Joar.—The seed of Andropogon Sorghum. (Nat. Ord. Graminacea.) A roundish grain, in shape not unlike the maize, but not of greater bulk than a small grain of wheat; its colour is a yellowish-white, in some varieties marked with a black spot. It is borne in loose tufts or panicles, several grains being attached to each of the upright pedicels at short distances from each other ; the stalks are about eighteen inches to two feet in height, and when dry are very rigid,—in this state they are much used in the manufacture of carpet-brooms and whisks. ‘The grain itself is chiefly used in this country for feeding poultry; it is however strongly suspected that wheaten flour is not unfrequently adulterated with it when it is in the market, but this can only occasionally take place, as the importation of Durra is very irregular. It is much used as food for the black population in the West Indies, whence it has been called zegvo corn: they make of it cakes about an inch thick, which are white, and tolerably palat- able. It is also used by the poorer peasants of Italy. All kinds of poultry, pigs, cattle, and even horses eat it with avidity. The quantity imported is very uncertain, some years passing without any arrivals of Durra, while at other MILLET. 15 times many hundreds of quarters arrive. It comes chiefly from Northern. Africa; it is however cultivated largely in the United States, West and East Indies, and in Southern Europe. It is a native of India. Mitter.—There are several distinct species of grain com- mercially known by this name; they all belong to the same “Natural Order (Gramiacea). 1. The Italian Millet-—Setaria Italica—is a small round grain, much like mustard-seed, but rather more than half its size; it is sweet and wholesome; its use in this country is almost wholly confined to confectionery. It is cultivated and used extensively in India, under the name of Koon- goonie, Kala-kangnee, and Kora-kang. It is grown chiefly in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. 2. German Millet—Setaria Germanica—which is very little used, except for feeding cage-birds. 3. Millet Proper—Panicum mitiacewm—is a native of the Hast Indies, where it is extensively cultivated, under the names of Warree and Kadi-kane. The principal districts in which it is grown are Madura, Palamcottah, and Tinnevelly. Several other species are used for food in various parts of the world, but those mentioned are the only ones which are brought to this country, and of them only very small quan- 16 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. tities are imported, the arrivals of which are very irregular and uncertain. Canary Senp. Phalaris Canariensis. (Nat. Ord. Gra- mInacee.) Though not used for human food, this seed is very exten- sively used in this country in feeding cage-birds, for which purpose it is both grown and imported. Many acres are: annually cultivated with this crop in Kent, and we some- times receive several hundred quarters from Germany, where its culture receives considerable attention. The Isle of Thanet is the chief place of its culture in England, and here its straw when cut into chaff is highly valued as fodder for horses. Buckwueat. Lagopyrum esculentum. (Nat. Ord. Poly- gonacee.) (Plate II. fig. 7.) Probably a native of England; it is much cutivated in Northern Kurope and in North America, where, in the form of buckwheat cakes, it 1s a favourite food. It comes occa- sionally to this country from Germany, chiefly for use as seed. It forms excellent food for pheasants, and for that purpose is sown extensively in the vicinity of game-preserves. ‘The seed is about twice the size of mustard-seed, rather longer than broad, and having three sharp angles running . PEAS. BEANS. 17 longitudinally ; the colour is a dark brown ; it is deprived of its husk in a manner similar to that employed with rice, and the. kernel is then ground to a coarse meal. Small quan- tities of this meal occasionally reach us from the United States, but chiefly as presents; there is no regular com- mercial demand. Puas, or Prase (both names are commonly used, com- metcially). Piswm sativum. (Nat. Ord. Leguminose.) This is the common white garden-pea in a ripened state. We annually receive large quantities from Dantzic and other northern ports, which are used as food for man and various domestic animals. The quantity of peas imported into the United Kingdom in 1850 was 181,419 quarters, and about four times that quantity was home-grown. Beans. aba vulgaris. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae.) The only kind of bean imported in any considerable quantities is the Egyptian or common horse-bean, which is largely consumed for feeding horses. ‘The same species 1s extensively cultivated in this country, but the consumption is so great, that not less than 443,306 quarters were im- ported in 1850. Previous to 1845 the average imports of five years was 161,418 quarters, whilst in the succeding five years it increased to 415,655 quarters; the greatest quan- 27004 18 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. tity was in 1848, when not less than 480,706 quarters were received from Alexandria and Cairo. Beans (American Haricot)—Phaseolus édtaiute —There are several varieties of this bean, differing only in colour; the white is most used, and during the scarcity which re- sulted from the failure of the potato-crop in 1847 and 1848, about 1200 quarters were sent to England from the United States. These beans were usually boiled and eaten as a vegetable with animal food; by many persons they were much liked, but were not generally considered easy of di- gestion. They are the same species as the Mrench bean of the gardens, and the French Haricot, but are an inferior | variety. ; Targs, or Vetcurs. Vicia sativa. (Nat. Ord. Legu- MINOSE.») The tare is a common crop in our own fields, asais being cut when the plant is green as fodder for cattle, the ripened seeds are only used for the purpose of sowing, and are usu- -. ally raised by our farmers and seedsmen; a few hundred _ quarters are however annually imported from Norway and Denmark and the North of Germany. Lenrits. Zrvum Lens. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosa.) The large lentil, which we receive from France, and usually ‘CHICK-PEA. . 19 imported by the “ Italian warehousemen” is sold by them for making soup similar to that made from peas, The article so much advertised as food for infants and invalids under the name of “ Revalenta Arabica”’ is the farina of the lentil freed from the outer skin, which is considered unwholesome. The small Egyptian Lentil (Zrvwm Lenticula), originally a native of Carinthia, is occasionally imported in considerable quantities: it is chiefly used in feeding cattle. It is of a red colour, and scarcely half the size of the French lentil. As none of the genus Hrvum are natives of Asia, it is most probable that the lentils mentioned in Holy Writ were the White Lupins (Lupinus albus: Leguminose), which are not only natives of Asia, but are now extensively cultivated in many parts of Asia and Southern Europe for the purposes of food. These white lupins are occasionally imported into England in small quantities, chiefly for the use of the resi- dent Italians, who are fond of this kind of pulse. Crct, Cicer, or Cuitcx-Pra. Cicer arietinum. (Nat. Ord. Leguminose.) This pulse somewhat resembles the white pea, but is rather larger and more irregularly shaped. It is much used in HKastern countries, as a nutritious food, under the name of Gram. When roasted, it is said to sustain life longer than 20 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. any other food in small quantities ; hence it is much used by travellers over the deserts, where the carriage of bulky food 1s inconvenient. It is imported occasionally, but for what purpose is not very clear,—it is thought for the purpose of roasting and grinding up with coffee as an adulteration. This probably is the best place to mention a few seeds which are imported in considerable quantities, wholly for agricultural purposes, either because they are better ripened abroad, or because the supply of home-raised seed is insuffi- cient to meet the demand. | . Lucerne Seed—WMedicugo sativa (Leguminose).—A small reddish-yellow seed, not quite so long, but thicker than a carraway seed, and the skin is quite smooth. It is a native of Britain, but is often imported from Holland and France. Clover (Dutch)—Trifolium repens (Leguminose).—This — seed is extensively imported from Holland and Germany. — Although a native of most parts of Hurope, it ripens best in those countries, and the imported seed is much esteemed. It is a minute kidney-shaped seed, less than half the size of a mustard-seed, and of a yellow or brown colour. Clover (American) —TZ?ri/olium Pennsylvanicum.—Of this species we receive very large quantities. It is found par- ticularly well adapted for culture in this country, and the Plate IV 16. Olive Plant. 17. Guava Plant. i8 Great American Cranberry 19. Pomegianate Eo iy Pp) 15. Tamarind Plant. IMPORTED SEEDS. ya imports have reached nearly 400 tons annually. As its name imports, it is a native of Pennsylvania, in the United States. In form it resembles the Dutch Clover, but its colour is a reddish-yellow. : Timothy Seed, or Timothy-grass Seed—Phlewm pratense (Graminacee).—A beautifully small and silky little grass- seed, which is sent in rather large quantities from North America. This and the following are the only kinds of grass-seed imported in quantities of commercial importance. Italian Rye-grass Seed—Lolium Italicum (Graminacee). —A large coarse kind of grass-seed, the produce of which is much esteemed for its rapid growth and bulk. From five to six hundred bags and bales are annually imported from the Levant. 22 CHAPTER II. FRUITS. THosE vegetable products which we shall describe in this chapter naturally divide themselves into two sections—* The Fleshy Fruits” and “The Nuts.” They are numerous and very interesting; coming as they do from almost all parts of the globe, they give us much information respecting the aspect of the Vegetable Kingdom in the distant regions from whence they are brought. Some are rare, and do not often meet the eye of even those who are curious in such things ; others arrive in such enormous quantities as to furnish em- ployment for an immense amount of tonnage in shipping, and many hundreds of thousands of persons, constituting an important source of revenue, and giving us an abundance of particularly useful and wholesome food. THE GRAPE. Pa Tue Fiesuy Frurrs.—The most important of these in every respect is Tue Grare.. Vitis vinifera. (Nat. Ord.- Vitacea.) With the exception of the “forbidden fruit” of the “tree of knowledge,” the grape i8 the first fruit mentioned in the . history of the world, for we find it stated in Genesis ix. that “Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vine- yard: and he drank of the wine.” This was at least four thousand years from the present time; we may therefore safely conclude that the vine is a native of Asia, whence it has followed the tide of civilization into Europe and Africa. It is now luxuriating in the genial climates of North Ame- rica and Australia, where it bids fair to be of immense im- portance. Since the time of Noah, history furnishes us with a con- tinuous series of facts, proving that this fruit has been con- stantly cultivated for the wine made from its juice. It has furnished an endless theme for poets and for prose-writers, and from its noble qualities has supplied both prophets and bards with striking similes and metaphors. ven the Re- deemer, who despised nought that the Father had created; said, ‘‘ | am the vine, and ye are its branches ;” and his own blessed blood he likened to the juice of the grape. 24, POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Of wine, the manufactured juice of the grape, we could say much that would be interesting, but it does not belong to a history of raw materials; we may however state, as a proof of its importance, that the quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1850 was not less than 7,970,067 gallons, of which only 1,691,702 gallons were re-exported. We receive comparatively few grapes in a fresh state: about three hundred tons arrive every autumn from Sicily, Lisbon, and Hamburg ; the latter, the produce of Germany, are finely coloured round black grapes; the former, from Sicily and Portugal, are oval berries, in large bunches, and both black and white. They suffer much in flavour from being closely packed, and still more from the use of sawdust as a packing material. ’ Raisins, or Dried Grapes (Uve passe majores), by far the most important form in which this fruit is .received, are of various kinds, according to the variety of grape from which they are prepared, or the mode of their prepa- ration ; thus, some varieties are stoneless, presenting the cu- rious anomaly of a true fruit being perfected without seed, a peculiarity which occasionally takes place in highly cul- tivated plants: this, although in the first imstance only an accidental variety, yet is capable of being propagated and RAISINS. | es rendered permanent. The Sultana raisin, which we receive from Smyrna, is of this kind; the black raisin of Smyrna is quite the reverse, for it has remarkably large seeds and poor berries, besides being of a black, instead of a very light reddish- brown, colour. Other raisins are distinguished by the mode in which they have been preserved ; thus, the finest are dried on the vines, and when ripe the stalk of the cluster is partly cut through, and the leaves removed from near it, by which means the drying is facilitated, and the fruit acquires a fine bloom: these Muscatels, or Raisins of the Sun, are the finest quality. ‘The commoner kinds are gathered when fully ripe; they are then hung on lines, or laid on floors to dry, and then dipped into a /ye of wood-ashes and barilla, of about 1:110 specific gravity, to every four gallons of which is added a handful of salt and a pint of oil. The effect of this immer- sion is to make the saccharine secretions exude to the sur- face, giving the fruit the peculiar brown varnished appear- ance which distinguishes the ordinary raisins from those used for the table. The kinds usually imported, besides those mentioned, are Valencias, Lexias, and Denias, from Spain; Malagas from Malaga; and Red Smyrnas from Turkey. The average annual quantity imported during the last five years has been about 12,000 tons. 26 ‘ POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Currants.— i be Oey &® 8 aes e 2 g 5 Ora a re. of o S84 35 Pap Pe Sy 0 a a) Ss | oS ri VEGETABLE FIBRES. 185 necessaries of existence,—too often, it is true, earned hardly and painfully, as we have been told by the immortal Hood in his ‘ Song of the Shirt,” the words of which are as un- dying as the feelings of love and charity by which they were dictated. If to our statistics of cotton we could have added information as to the number of half-starved, wretched, and broken spirits who are daily toiling for their bread, amid the roar of those 249,627 looms and surrounded by the dizzying whirl of those twenty-one millions of spindles, we should then see one of the dark scenes of life, which for our comfort is best hidden. We will look to a brighter picture. ‘Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store ; Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the livelong day ; Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light. She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit ; Receives no praise, but though her lot be such (Toilsome and indigent), she renders much ; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true— A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, Her title to a treasure in the skies.” 186 DIVISION IIL. MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS USED IN THE ARTS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES. Unprr this division we rank a very heterogeneous assem- blage of materials, many of them exercising immense in- fluence in the commerce of nations. First, we have those which, by the peculiar influence of the chemical principle called Tannin (tannic acid) contained in them, convert the albumen and gelatine of animal tissues into tannates of those bases, thus forming compounds which are insoluble in water, hence the durability of leather. Next we have the varied materials of the dyers’ art, carefully selected and requiring nice manipulation, and the powerful aid of the chemist, to produce the infinitely varied tints of colour which give beauty to the textile fabrics of the weaver ; and, to close the series, we have the gums, resins, and oils, which are applied in numerous ways to the arts of social life. 187 CHAPTER VIII. TANNING MATERIALS, Tue most generally used material for converting the skins of animals into the valuable economic article leather, is the bark of the common oak, and various less common species of the same genus. Several of the tanning materials are also used in dyeing. Oak Bark. Quercus pedunculata. (Nat. Ord. Cory- lacee, Mirbel.) This familiar tree needs no description. Some there are however who regard it only as furnishing material for those “wooden walls” which are both the glory and defence of cur country; but valuable asis the timber of the oak-tree, its bark is also of great utility, furnishing perhaps the best known material for tanning hides and skins. This astrin- gent property, found in all parts of the oak-tree, was known 188 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. to the ancients, and was commented upon by Dioscorides. Besides the bark of Q. pedunculata, that of other species of oak not distinguishable as bark is mixed and used indis- criminately ; particularly that of Q. sesseliflora. Much oak- bark is of course furnished from our own forests, but a prodigious quantity is also exported from the continent of Europe, chiefly from the ports of Holland and Belgium ; the foreign article is cut into small pieces about three inches in length. In 1852 we received 19,034 tons, and the home produce was 150,000 tons; this however probably embraced a large proportion of the bark of the Larch (Pinus Larix, Nat. Ord. Pinacee), which is also of great value, being only inferior to the oak. CorK-TREE BarkK— Quercus Suber.—The bark of the cork oak, when young, that is, about twelve years of age, is of no use for the ordinary purposes to which cork is applied ; but its removal, if performed with proper care, rather tends to the future vigour of the tree and improves its cork- bearing qualities. The young bark so removed is imported to this country for tanning purposes under the above name ; it usually comes from Rabat, in pieces about a foot in length, shaped very irregularly. We receive about three or four hundred tons annually. — MANGROVE BARK. 189 Vatonta.—The acorn-cups of Quercus Aigilops. (Plate XII. fig. 60.) This oak is a dwarf shrubby species grow- ing abundantly in the Levant; the acorns produced by it are very large, the cups often measuring over an inch in diameter; they have a whitish colour and a peculiar rough appearance, owing to their being covered externally with large reflexed woody scales. Valonia is very valuable for its tanning properties, and the abundance in which it is produced spontaneously. We receive it chiefly from Smyrna, whence not less than 12,520 tons were imported in 1850. There are two articles, one called Camata (Plate XII. fig. 61), the other Camatina (Plate XII. fig. 62), which are also produced by Quercus Afgilops. Camata consists of the half-grown acorns dried, and Camatina is the ovule en- veloped in its involucre just after the flowering is over, in other words an incipient acorn ; so that these three materials are the seeds of this oak in three stages of development. Valonia is the least valuable of the three. Manerove Bark. Rhizophora Mangle. (Nat. Ord. Rhizophoracee.)—This tree is most abundant in tropical countries, on the marsliy banks of rivers, where it forms an impenetrable jungle from the circumstance of its branches throwing down roots somewhat after the manner of the 190 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Banyan tree. Importations of the bark have been occa- sionally received from the West Indies, and more frequently from Africa, but it is by no means a common commercial article. Its only value is as a tanning material, and in this respect it 1s of second-rate importance. Acacta Bark. Acacia melanorylon. (Nat. Ord. Legu- minos@.)—This bark is extremely valuable in tanning pro- cesses ; but asit is one of the natural products of Australia, shipments to this country are very irregular and lately have been very scarce, its bulk almost precluding the possibility of its importation with profit. An extract made from this bark has lowever frequently been imported, and will pro- bably at some future day form a valuable export from Aus- tralia, rivalling the Cutch and Gambir of India. Baxsoot Barx.—The barks of the Acacia Arabica and Acacia Catechu, generally mixed.—These barks, under the name of Badool, are extensively used in the East Indies, and have been occasionally, but without success, imported to England. PoMEGRANATE Bark.—The rind of the fruit of the Pomegranate, Punica Granatum. (Plate IV. fig. 19.)—A few packages of this rind or bark are occasionally im- ported from Barbary for tanning the finer kinds of leather ; DIVI-DIVI. 191 it is said to form the principal material for tanning the cele- brated Morocco leather. Divi-pivi, List-prsr or List-prvi (the native name).— The seed-pods of Cesalpinia coriaria. (Nat. Ord. Legumi- nose.) (Plate XII. fig. 59.) This tree is a native of the sea-side marshes of Curacva, St. Domingo, Cartagena, and several other places on the Spanish Main. It attains a height of from fifteen to twenty feet, producing an immense number of small yellow labur- num-like flowers; these are succeeded by a pod varying from one to three inches in length and two-thirds of an inch broad, of a dark glossy-brown colour. As they grow, these pods become curled in a very remarkable manner, when short making merely one bend like the letter C, but when of the full length, two curves, like the letter 8. Divi- divi is one of the most astringent of all vegetable sub- stances, and consequently is of great value in tanning. At present it is produced in such enormous quantities natu- rally, that no need has yet been felt for its cultivation, but it would doubtless well repay the grower. It is not used by itself, but is generally mixed with oak-bark and valonia. We receive it chiefly from Savanilla, Maracaibo, Paraiba, and St. Domingo; in 1851 more than 3000 tons were im- ported. 192 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Pr-p1.—The ripe pods or legumes of Cesalpinia Papai (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae). (Plate XII. fig. 63.)—This tan- ning material more frequently comes mixed with Divi-divi, than asa separate importation, and when so mixed decreases the value of the latter. Sometimes, though rarely, small quantities of Pi-pi are imported, but it is not much valued. ALGAROBILLA, ALGAROBA.—The legumes of a species of Prosopis, supposed to be P. pallida (Nat. Ord. Legumi- nose).—Most of the species of Prosopis have short round- ish pods with a wavy outline longitudinally; the seeds therein are enveloped in a sweetish pulp, which in some of the species is also possessed of considerable astringency. When ripe the pods fall off the trees, and they soon decom- pose and run into a mass with the pulp, and a resinous juice contained in the shells of the pod. This mass is collected when dried, packed into bags, and exported ; the material has a very destructive effect upon the bagging, so that it usually reaches this country in bulk, the packages becoming de- stroyed on the voyage; it is not very useful, and is only occasionally imported. About 700 tons have been received at the port of Liverpool. Nes-neB.~The dried pods of Acacia Nilotica. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae, Suborder Mimosee.)—These Minosa-pods, = CATECHU. 1938 sometimes called N2d-n2b, are much used by the Kgyptian tanners ; they are about two or three inches in length, flat and drawn in between each seed: this is a characteristic of the Mimosa tribe. A few importations have been seen in the British markets, but they are not in demand. CatrecHu, Trerra Japonica, CutcuH, and GAMBIER.— Under these names we receive very large quantities of vege- table extract which contains tannic acid in great abundance, and is consequently very valuable in tanning processes. The various names under which this article comes, serve to define several well-marked varieties, which probably ori- ginate entirely from the different modes of manufacture adopted by the natives in various localities of the Indian Empire, whence we derive the entire supply of this useful material. | : Catechu is the extract of the wood of Acacia Catechu (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae), the seeds of Areca-Catechu (Nat. Ord. Palmacee), and the leaves of Nauclea Gambir (Nat. Ord. Cinchonacea). The Acacia Catechu isa small spiny tree rarely exceeding twenty feet in height ; the wood is hard and heavy, the cen- tre is of a very dark red colour, nearly approaching to black ; it is from this portion of the wood the extract is made. In fo) 194 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. India it is made by the poorer natives, who move from place to place, selecting jungles where the Acacia is most abundant. They cut down the trees and chop the heart- wood into chips, which they boil in water; when the water is deeply coloured, it is strained off, and submitted to the process of evaporation, fresh supplies of the decoction being added, until the whole by evaporation becomes thickened sufficiently ; it is then poured out into clay moulds, and left to dry in the sun. An interesting sketch, from the Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker, published in ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany,’ will give a painful insight into the life of the “ Kutt” makers of India. “ At half-past eight a.m. it suddenly fell calm, and we proceeded to Chakuchee, the native carts breaking down in their passage over the projecting beds of flinty rocks, or as they hurried down the inclined planes which we cut through the precipitous banks of the streams. Near Chakuchee we passed an alligator, just killed by two men,—a foul beast about nine feet long, and of the Mager kind. More inter- esting than its natural history was the painful circumstance of its having just swallowed a child, that was playing in the water, while its mother was washing her domestic uten- CATECHU, 195 sils in the river. The brute was hardly dead, much dis- tended by its prey, and the mother standing beside it. A very touching group was this! the parent, with her hands clasped in agony, unable to withdraw her eyes from the cursed reptile, which still clung to life with that tenacity for which its tribe is so noted, and beside her the two athlete leaning on their bloody bamboo staffs, with which they had all but despatched the animal. “The poor woman who lost her child earns a scanty maintenance by making catechu. She inhabits a little cottage and has no property but her two Bhiles (oxen) to bring wood from the hills, and a very few household chat- tels, and how few these are is known only to persons who have seen the meagre furniture of the Dangha hovels. Her husband cuts the trees in the forest, and drags them to the hut; but he is now sick; and her only son, her future stay, was he whose end I have just related. “Her daily food is rice, with beans from the beautiful- flowered Dodlichos, trailing round the cottage; and she is in debt to the contractor, who has advanced her two rupees, to be worked off in three months, by the preparation of 24.0 lbs. of catechu. The present was her second husband, an old man; by him she never had any children, and in 196 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. this respect alone did the poor creature think herself very unfortunate, for her poverty she did not feel. Rent to the Rajah, tax to the police, and rates to the Brahminee priest, are all paid from an acre of land, yielding so wretched a crop of barley, that it more resembled a fallow-field than a harvest-field. All day long she is boiling down the catechu- wood cut into chips, and pouring the decoction into large wooden troughs, where it is inspissated.” Dr. Hooker thus describes the Acacia Catechu :—“ The plant is a little thorny tree (dire enemy of mine), erect, and spreading a rounded coma of well-remembered prickly branches. Its wood is yellow, with a dark brick-red heart : it is most productive in January, and useless in June.” The catechu made from the Acacia Catechu is also called Cutch and Terra Japonica. ‘The first of these names is derived from cate, a tree, and chu, juice. The term Cutch is said to be also from the native language, in which it is called Kutt. The term Terra Japonica was applied by European pharmaceutists when the substance was first im- ported as a kind of astringent earth from Japan. In com- merce one variety is termed Catechu, and another Cutci, although the source is the same. The former has been poured out upon mats, when about the consistency of honey, and CATECHU. 197 dried in the sun; when sufficiently hardened, it is cut into small square pieces and thoroughly dried, and in this state packed into cane baskets for exportation. This variety has a light chocolate-brown colour, and the cubes are about an inch square, having an earthy fracture and external appear- ance. ‘The other variety, Cutch, is of a darker colour, rich brown, with a shining appearance and fracture; it comes much mixed with the broken leaves on which it has been laid to dry ; it is packed in a similar manner to the catechu, but 1s most generally run into one mass. Gambier, or Gambir, is an extract of the leaves of the Nauclea Gambir: this plant belongs to the Natural Order of the Cinchonas, or Jesuits’ bark trees. It 1s made by boil- ing the leaves and evaporating the decoction to dryness; in appearance it resembles cutch, but is not so glossy in its fracture, and rather lighter in colour. Itis mostly imported from Singapore, where it is extensively cultivated. Small quantities of a remarkably fine kind of catechu have occasionally been imported in the form of small round cakes, about one inch in thickness and two inches and a half in diameter, and rounded at the edges. These cakes are of a very dark brown colour, and rather glossy; they come in cases carefully packed, with a small piece of maize- 198 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. leaf between each. This substance is called Kassw, and is known to be manufactured from the seeds of the Areca Catechu, or Betel nut, one of the palms. Another vegetable extract, now very frequently imported under the name of Catechu from Pegu, is prepared from the Butea frondosa, a leguminous tree, with handsome pea- shaped flowers, very common in India; every part of the tree abounds in the astringent principle. There are other extracts imported occasionally, for tanners’ use, which also receive the common designation of Catechu, but the sources from whence they are derived is unknown. One variety is the Brown Catechu in conical masses, from Siam. The quantity of Cutch and Gambier imported into Great Britain was last year about 1350 tons. Myropatans. Terminalia Chebula. (Nat. Ord. Combre- tacee.) (Plate XIII. fig. 68.) The seeds called commercially Myrabolams are the dried fruit of a small tree, very common in many districts of India and other parts of Asia; it is probable they are derived from more than one species of Zerminalia. It is much valued both as a dye-stuff and also as a tanning material. The Myrobalans are about an inch in length, about the size and shape of a Spanish olive, with an olive-yellow-coloured MYROBALANS. 199 pericarp, generally strongly marked with longitudinal wrinkles. They have become a very important item in our commerce with India, but their introduction to general use can only date back about ten years. The imports, according to Mr. Poole, now amount to about 1200 tons annually. 200 CHAPTER IX. MATERIALS USED 1N DYEING. ‘* Along the sunny bank, or watery mead, Ten thousand stalks the various blossoms spread. Peaceful and lowly in their native soil, They neither know to spin or care to toil ; Yet with confess’d magnificence deride Our vile attire, and impotence of pride. The cowslip smiles, in brighter yellow dress’d Than that which veils the nubile virgin’s breast ; A fairer red stands blushing on the rose, Than that which on the bridegroom’s vestment flows. Take but the humble lily of the field ; And, if our pride will to our reason yield, It must by sure comparison be shown That on the regal seat great David’s son, Array’d in all his robes and types of power, Shines with less glory than that simple flower.” Gorexous as are the colours of flowers, they afford but little assistance to the dyer’s art, except in the patterns LOGWOOD. 201 which they offer for his imitation. Generally speaking, they are as fugacious as they are brilliant; and those most dazzling to the eyes are often the most ephemeral. ‘The vegetable products which are used in the process of dyeing, are often totally different in colour themselves, to the tints which they yield under the skilful treatment of the dyer. But much as art has done to improve this important branch of our manufactures, we are still very far from rivalling the flowers of the field; and if the “lily of the valley” men- tioned in Scripture is, as is very generally supposed, the Lilium Chalcedonicum, not even the rapid advance of the arts and sciences has yet enabled the sovereigns of the earth to say their vestments can rival those of that hly in beauty and brilliancy. Our vegetable dyes are derived from all the parts of plants: thus the soo¢s of some, the wood of many more, the bark, the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit of others. The first we shall notice is the Loewoop. Hematoxylon Campechianum. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae.) (Plate XV. fig. 76.) The tree producing this dye is a native of the province of Yucatan, in South America, the principal town of which, Campeachy, situated on the river San Francisco, in the Bay 202 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. of Campeachy, was formerly the mart for logwood; but it is now extensively cultivated in Jamaica, and the chief trade is removed to Belize, a British settlement in the Bay of Honduras, whence immense quantities are annually ex- ported. Logwood was introduced into England as a dye in the reign of Queen Hlizabeth, but, owing to the ignorance of the dyers in fixing the colour, it fell into such disrepute as to occasion the passing an Act of Parliament, entitled an “ Act for abolishing certain deceitful stuffs employed in dyeing cloths ;” this law remained in force, and prohibited the use of logwood, until 1661, when it was repealed. This Hematoxylon is a tree reaching fifty feet in height. The wood is very hard and dense, having a greater specific gravity than water; the leaves are very handsome, they are pinnate and of a fine dark glossy green colour; the flowers are pea-shaped, in fine yellow racemes. The colouring matter depends upon a peculiar principle called Aematin, or hamatoaxylin, a red crystalline substance, which is so abundant in some samples as to exist in the form of distinct blood-red crystals. The stems are cut into large logs, and the bark and alburnum, or white wood, is chopped off; the dark-red imner wood being the only valuable portion. PEACH WOOD. 203 The colour of a decoction of logwood is of a brownish blood-red. Acids change it to the bright colour of red ink (which is usually made by adding acetic acid to an infusion of logwood chips). The alkalies strike a purple or violet, and the salts of iron a dark violet, approaching a black colour. The quantity of logwood imported into England in 1851 was 34,090 tons. The value is in proportion to the size of the logs, the largest being the most prized. Latterly, large quantities of the extract of logwood have been imported from time to time. Nicaracua, Lima, or Peacu-woop. Cesalpinia echinata. (Nat. Ord. Leguminose.) ' This is sometimes called Brésil de St. Martha. It is in logs about four feet in length, with a diameter of six or eight inches; the whole surface is broken up with deep clefts, giving a very singular appearance to the pieces, which are of a dark reddish-brown colour, the white wood or alburnum being wholly or partly removed; like logwood, the larger the logs, the greater is their value. It dyes red and peach-colour, and is very extensively used; about 7000 tons are annually imported, chiefly from Rio de la Hache, Mazatlan, Realijo, and Lima. 204 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Brazit-woop. Cesalpinia crista. (Nat. Ord. Legumi- n08@.) | This tree is from fifteen to twenty feet in height, with prickly branches and racemes of yellow flowers. The wood is in much thinner pieces, and of a paler colour than the two preceding dye-woods; it yields rose-colour, red, and yellow, according to the mordants used, but the colours are not permanent, and the wood is less used than formerly, owing to the introduction of superior materials. About 800 tons is now the amount of the annual imports. BraziLerro-woop. Cesalpinia Brasiliensis. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosa.) The tree which produces this wood is a native of Jamaica, St. Domingo, and probably the South American continent ; it rarely attains any great size,—about twenty feet is its maximum height. The foliage is remarkably handsome, each leaf consisting of from six to nine pairs of pinne, and each pinna of six to eight pairs of oval, obtuse, oblong, glabrous leaflets, of a very bright, glossy, emerald-green colour, reminding us of the beautiful fronds of some of the ferns of the genus Adiantum. Braziletto is a very useful dye, producing fine red and orange-red colours. The imports amount to about 400 tons per annum. ‘There are CAM-WOOD. 205 two varieties, one of which, called the Royal Braziletto, is chiefly consumed in Spain. Sapan-woop, Bookum or BuxKkum-woop. Cesalpinia Sapan. (Nat. Ord. Leguminose.) The Sapan-tree is a native of the Hast Indies; it is as much as forty feet in height, with handsome compound foliage somewhat similar to the last, and handsome racemes of yellow flowers. The branches only are used, and from these the bark is entirely removed before exportation ; the pleces are generally about three to four feet in length, and vary from one to three inches in diameter. Sapan-wood yields a good red dye, which however is not easily fixed ; nevertheless it is very extensively used both in India and also in Hurope; our imports alone were 3670 tons in 1850. The red Telinga cottons are dyed with Sapan-wood. Sapan-wood root is occasionally imported from Singapore aud other places, under the names of Yellow-wood, Sapan- wood root, and Sapan root; it imparts a yellow colour. The pieces are usually thin, and about two or three feet in length, with the bark cut off. Cam-woop. Baphia nitida. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae.) This tree is a native of Sierra Leone, with shining im- perfectly pinnate leaves, and white or yellow flowers. It is 206 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. of considerable size, often attaining the height of fifty feet. The stem is the part used; it is cut into logs about four feet in length, and these, after the removal of the bark and outer wood, are split and trimmed square for exportation ; they are of a rich deep red colour. It yields a brilliant red dye, which is rendered much deeper by sulphate of iron. The red of the English Bandana handkerchiefs is produced by Cam-wood. About 1100 tons are annually imported. Bar-woop is the produce of the same tree, and possesses no sensible difference either in quality or appearance; it also comes from the coast of Africa. SauNDERS or Rep Sanpat. Pélerocarpus Santalinus. (Nat. Ord. Leguminose.) This dye-wood is the produce of a large tree growing to the height of sixty or seventy feet, on the mountains and in other parts of India. It is usually imported in small billets two or three feet in length, of a fine deep red colour ; the concentric circles of the transverse section being divided by dark, almost black lines. With different mordants it yields brownish-red, scarlet-red, deep crimson, and yellowish- red. ‘These colours however are not very permanent. ‘The imports amount to about 350 tons per annum. Another dye-wood, also called Red Sandal-wood, is produced by FUSTIC. 207 Adenanthera pavonina, one of the largest trees of India ; the native name is Rukta-chundun. Neither of these must be confounded with the sweet-scented Sandal-woods, which will be described in the chapter on Furniture Woods. Fusric, Oto Fustric, Maclura tinctoria (Plate XV. fig. 77) (Nat. Ord. Moracee), and probably other species of the same genus. The tree producing this dye-wood is closely allied to the mulberry ; it is a native of the West India Islands and the coast of South America. Jamaica, St. Domingo, and Sava- nilla, are the principal places of export; it is of large size, the logs we receive being about from one foot to two and a half feet in diameter, and from three to four feet im length. The colour of the wood is a fine golden yellow. The French dyers applied the name /uste¢ to a European dye-wood, and from this we have derived the term fustic. The term old fustic is decidedly absurd; it arose from the great error of supposing that the wood of Rhus Cotinus (fustet of the French) was the young branches of the fustic-tree; one however is a mere shrub, native of Kurope, the other an immense tree, a native of the New World. Fustic dyes yellow, olive, brown, marone, bronze, and Saxon-green, The quantity imported in 1851 was 9808 tons. 208 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Youne Fustic, or Zante Fustic. Rhus Cotinus. (Nat. Ord. Anacardiacee.) (Plate XV. fig. 79.) A very ornamental shrub, grown extensively in the Greek Islands, where it is much used for dyeing a beautiful rich yellow colour. It is the same as the Venetian sumach or wild olive. Our imports are chiefly from Patras and Ithaca, and consist of four or five tons with each cargo of currants, for which cargoes the fustic is used as dunnage. Young fustic is in crooked sticks about four or five feet in length, two or three inches in diameter, and of a light sulphur- yellow colour, the bark being completely removed. Be- tween 300 and 400 tons are annually imported. Green Hpony. Jacaranda ovalifolia. (Nat. Ord. Big- noniacec.») This tree is a native of South America, where it is prized both as a hard wood and a dye-stuff; it is of an olive-green colour, in pieces about three feet in length, and yields olive-green, brown, and yellow colours. About 700 tons are imported annually. These are the principal woods used in dyeing; several others occasionally come, but owing to the careless manner in which names are applied it is impossible to ascertain their history. A familiar example of this difficulty will be found 2 a heated MADDER ROOT. 209 in the history of Fustic, the name being applied to two dis- tinctly different woods, leading to the assumption that they are products of the same tree, but of different ages; whereas one is tropical American, the other European, and they belong to two distinct Natural Orders. In commercial matters many such errors arise, and are fostered for long periods. The remaining dye-stuffs consist of roots, leaves, flowers, and even the entire plant of some species. Mapper Root. Rubia tinctorum. (Nat. Ord. Gahacee.) (Plate XV. fig. 80.) Maddey is one of the most important dyes known. There are several distinct species used, but the European madder is from Rubia tinctorum and probably R. peregrina. This plant is extensively cultivated in Southern Europe and in Holland. We receive very large quantities of the root from Smyrna, Trieste, Leghorn, and other Mediterranean ports, packed usually in square bales covered with cloth made of horsehair, or partly wool and horsehair. We also receive great quantities of a less valuable description from Holland, which is generally if not always in powder, under the name of ground madder, packed in very large casks. The dyeing qualities of the madder-plant were known both to the Greeks and Romans. JDhioscorides states that P 210 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. it was found both wild and cultivated in Italy and Asia Minor, and, besides being used in dyeing, was also used in medicine under the name of Hrythrodanon. Pliny mentions it under the same name, and also calls it Ruwdza, which is now used for its generic appellation. lLeuchs, in his ‘ Traité complet des Matiéres Tinctoriales, says that the Romans also called it V@rantia, whence the French have derived their name Garance. It gives the much-admired Turkey- red colour, also madder-brown and madder-yellow; but it requires nice manipulation to produce bright colours with this material. Formerly the Turks understood the use of madder better than any other people, but lately the art in this country has attained equal if not superior excellence. The cultivation of madder, which occupies a large portion of the agricultural class in Turkey and the Levant, and also in Holland and France, requires much care and labour; the soil requires to be well and deeply worked. The plant is propagated by sets, or suckers from the crown of the root, those taken above ground succeeding best ; they are planted in May or June, nine or ten inches apart. The roots are not fit for digging until the third autumn after they are planted. When raised the roots are usually dried in kilns; seasons however occur occasionally when the roots are dried EAST INDIA MADDER. 211 on the land by exposure to the sun and air. In commerce we find the following varieties of the common madder :— Smyrna, French, Syrian, and Italian roots ; and French, Dutch-crop, Ombros, Gamene, and Mull ground madders. The quantity of roots imported in 1851 was 8081 tons, and of ground madder 5012, or both together 13,093 tons. Garancrne.—This substance is a preparation of madder for which we are indebted to the French. It is powdered madder, acted upon by sulphuric acid ; the acid partly car- bonizes the ignine, or woody matter of the madder, with- out impairing the colouring matter, which is consequently yielded with greater ease. Garancine is a valuable but ex- “pensive dye; it is in the form of a puce or violet-brown coloured powder. We receive only a few tons annually from France. Kast Inpia Mapper. Rubia Munjista. (Nat. Ord. OCinchonacee.) (Plate XV. fig. 78.) This is the article known generally as Munjeet or Mun- jeeth; it is a native of Nepal, Bengal, and Japan. It grows very much in the same way as common madder; the roots however'are thinner and much longer ; they are usually imported in bundles about the thickness of a man’s wrist, but flattened by pressure in the bales, and about two feet 912 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. in length. The roots are bent three times, and there are about fifty or sixty in each bundle. Munjeet is often called Chay-root ; but this is a mistake, the latter being the pro- duce of a totally different plant. We receive from sixty to eighty tons per annum, all from the Hast Indies. The uses of this root are the same as common madder. Cuay Roor.—Under this name two different kinds of root are occasionally imported from India. 1. The true Chay or Che root, which somewhat resembles Munjeet but is rounder and more brittle. It is the root of Oldenlandia umbellata (Nat. Ord. Rubiacez), a native of sandy soils in Java and Coromandel ; it is much cultivated in the latter place, where its roots strike very deep in sandy soil. It is used to dye red, purple, and a fine orange- brown. The colouring matter resides entirely in the bark of the root; the inner portion is white and pithy. 2. The roots of several species of Morenda, or Indian Mulberry (Nat. Ord. Rubiacee). They yield a red dye. Morinda umbellata is a small bushy tree, a native of - Ceylon and Malacca; the thinnest roots yield a bright red dye. This is the Mangkudu root of Malacca. Morinda tinctoria, the Ach root of Central India, is a very short tree, with a large bushy head supported on a TURMERIC. 213 trunk only a few feet in height. The wood is very hard and durable, and in high esteem for gun-stocks. The bark of the roots yields a red dye, which is rather fugitive; the natives use alum to fix the colour. Morinda citrifolia, a small tree, native of Central India, where its roots constitute the red dye called a/ or aad ; it is used in giving a permanent red colour to the native cotton cloth called “hurwa, which is much worn by the water- carriers of India. These Morindas have all been occa- sionally imported under the names of Madder, Munjeet, and Chay-root. Turmeric.—The rhizome or root- stalk of Curcuma longa. (Nat. Ord. Zingiberacea. See p. 77.) (Plate XIII. fig. 65.) This vegetable product is supposed to be the «vzrevpos Tvéixos (Cyperus Indicus) of the ancients, which both Dios- corides and Pliny describe as resembling the roots of ginger in form, but dyeing saliva a saffron-colour when chewed. The name Curcuma is derived from the Persian kurkum, saffron. In India it is known under various names, as Aruk ool Sufr huldee, Jaola huldee, Huldee, etc. Dr. Pereira describes and figures five different varieties of Turmeric as those which generally find their way into the European markets. 214 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 1. China Turmeric.—This sort consists of smooth, plump, round, and long tubers, of a greenish-yellow colour exter- nally. They yield a bright powder, and on that account fetch a high price, and are much esteemed. 2. Bengal Turmeric.—This consists principally of long thin tubers, externally smooth and of a dull stone-colour ; internally a deep reddish-yellow colour, and rather brittle, with shining fracture. It is not so fine in appearance as other sorts, but fetches a high price, and is particularly va- luable as a yellow dye. 3. Madras Turmeric.—This Dr. Pereira calls “ the most showy of all kinds of Turmeric.” The tubers are large; some are long with side branches, others are round and oval; ex- ternally they are, in common with the preceding varieties, marked at slight distances by transverse ridges, but besides these the Madras variety has slight longitudinal wrinkles, Externally the colour is bright yellow, internally it resem- bles that exhibited by the fracture of Gamboge. 4. Malabar or Bombay Turmeric—consists of long irre- gularly shaped tubers, darkish yellow, and much wrinkled externally ; the tubers are smaller than the Madras kind, and of an inferior quality. 5. Java Turmeric—somewhat resembles the Chinese va- QUERCITRON BARK. Q15 riety ; consisting also of short and long tubers, chiefly long, and of a greenish-yellow colour. It is not common in the markets. The colours produced by turmeric are various very beau- tiful shades of yellow, but, like many others of our most beautiful dyes, the colour is not so permanent as could be desired. Besides its use in dyeing, turmeric forms a prin- cipal ingredient in the favourite Indian condiment curry- powder. The quantity imported from India and China in 1851 was about 2000 tons. Quercirron Bark. Quercus tinctoria. (Nat. Ord. Corylacea.) The Quercitron Oak is a large tree, a native of North America; the timber is valuable for ship-building purposes, and the bark is largely used for tanning leather, but in this country it is used for dyeing yellow. For this purpose the underbark is crushed, and resembles a mass of short yellowish-white fibres, mixed with powdery particles; in this state it is packed into very large hogsheads, and ex- ported to Europe. Between 3000 and 4000 tons are con- sumed annually in England. Fiavinu.—Under this name a new dye-stuff has lately been imported from the United States. A sample of the 216 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. first importation was exhibited in the Liverpool collection of raw produce, at the Great Industrial Exhibition ; it was presented by T. B. Blackburne, Esq., merchant, of Liverpool. From an examination of that specimen, and some lots sub- sequently imported, besides information from other sources, the author is mduced to believe that it is a-precipitate of colouring matter from the Quercitron bark, formed in the’ tan-pits of the American tanners, who endeavour to keep its manufacture secret. It is a greenish-yellow powder, and is said to give a fine olive-yellow colour to cloth. About 170 tons have been imported during the last two years. SaFFLOWER.—The dried flowers of Carthamus tinctorius _ (Plate XIV. fig. 71) (Nat. Ord. Composite) pressed into little cakes. (Plate XIV. fig. 72.) The Carthamus is an annual plant, which has bright yel- low composite flowers, somewhat similar to marigolds, about as large as a crown-piece in circumference. The florets are plucked out, pressed into small cakes, which are dried and packed into bales, weighing about two hundredweight each. Safflower is used for three different purposes; first, for adulterating the more valuable article saffron, this how- ever is a very insignificant application; secondly, it is largely consumed in the manufacture of rouge, and gives SAFFRON. 217 happiness to the heart of many a faded belle, who, self- deceived, believes she has hidden the ravages of time be- neath its friendly mask; and thirdly, in dyeing. Two colouring principles exist in Safflower: one is soluble in water, and isa bright saffron yel/ow colour; the other, which has been called carthamic acid and carthamin, is so- luble in alkaline solutions, and is of a fine rose-red colour : this latter, when precipitated from its solution, dried, and mixed with very finely powdered tale, constitutes rouge. Properly prepared, the red colouring-matter communicates a beautiful red colour to silks, but is very fugitive, and will not bear washing. The quantity of safflower imported is considerable. ‘The greater portion comes from the Hast Indies ; this is always pressed into the little cakes before mentioned. A small quantity has latterly come from Egypt, of very fine quality, not pressed, but loose, like saffron, which it very much resembles. The imports into the United Kingdom in 1851 were nearly 600 tons. Sarrron.— The dried pistils of the common Crocus. (Crocus sativus: Nat. Ord. [ridacee.) Though affording a brilliant yellow colour, more easily perhaps than any other vegetable product, saffron can hardly, in the common acceptation of the term, be considered a dye- 218 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. stuff in this country. It is however much used as a colour- ing ingredient in food and medicine, and many medicinal virtues have been attributed to it, both by the ancients and moderns. It is of very ancient repute, being first mentioned by Solomon in his “ Song,” chap. iv. ver. 14: “ Spike- nard and saffron ; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.” Homer alludes to it in the Ihad; and that it was familiarly known to the Romans is evidenced by the frequent allusions we find in their classical writings to this substance. Thus its medicinal properties are alluded to when Propertius says, ‘ Kt crocino nares myrrheus ungat onyx;” and Ca- tullus alludes to the dyeing quality, and speaks of saffron- 3 coloured tunics, “tunica crocina.” Virgil very often alludes to it; once he says, “ Circumtextum croceo velamen acan- tho.” Our English word Saffron is derived from the Ara- bians, who called it Zafaran. Formerly, saffron was extensively cultivated in England, especially in Essex:-the name of the town Saffron Walden arose from that place being one of the chief marts for this article. The common crocus is a native of Asia Minor, but it has become naturalized over most parts of Kurope, and in this YELLOW BERRIES. 219 country has given rise to a great number of varieties, which are esteemed only as garden flowers. There are two kinds of saffron imported, the Spanish and the French; formerly an inferior kind was in use, called Cake Saffron, which was in flat cakes made by mixing it with gum and rolling it into thin oval cakes about the size of the hand. From 5000 to 7000 pounds only are annu- ally imported; and this is chiefly used in pharmacy, the dyeing property being inferior in permanency to that of other preferable materials. Yettow Berrizs.—The berries of Rhamnus infectorius.. (Nat. Ord. Rhamnacee.) (Plate XIII. fig. 64.) The Buckthorn, which produces the berries called yellow berries, and sometimes Persian berries, is a native of the South of Hurope, where it is much cultivated. It is a procumbent shrub, growing naturally in rough rocky places ; in the Levant it forms an important article of commerce, and in F’rance it is also extensively cultivated. The unripe berries are gathered and dried; those from Smyrna and other places in the Levant are the best; those from France are smaller and are not much used in this country,—they are called Avignon berries, or Grains d’ Avignon. Yellow-berries produce a beautiful yellow colour, which 220 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. however is giving way to the mineral colours, in conse- quence of its want of permanency—the fault of most vegetable colours. The consumption is still very con- siderable, amounting to between 500 and 600 tons per annum. Saumac or Sumacu.—The dried and powdered leaves of hus Cotinus. (Nat. Ord. Anacardiacea.) (Plate XV. fig. 79.) This material was known to the ancients, by whom it was used for tanning as well as dyeing. It contains large quantities of ¢annin, as well as a yellow colouring matter. similar to that yielded by fustic; the wood of this plant has been already described as young fustic. It is brought to this country in small bags, of about one hundredweight and a half. More than 13,000 tons were imported in 1852. OrcHELLA-WEED.—U nder this name are imported several species of Loccella. (Nat. Ord. Lichenes.) The lichens which constitute the Orchella-weeds of com- merce are of an ash-grey colour, and consist of long thin flat thalli, or leaves, having a mealy appearance; they are about an inch and a half to two inches in length, and much branched. vif The ancients were acquainted with one or more of the ORCHELLA. PPA species. Pliny alludes to it under the name of fucus mari- nus, but he also applied the term /fweus to the alkanet or red-herb used in dyeing, and from which the rouge, with ” was made. which “vetule vitia corporis fwco occulunt, He applies the term fucus also to the juice of the purple- jish, a gasteropodous mollusc, of the genus Murex, from which the ancients are said to have made the beautiful Tyrian purple. In his ‘ Dictionnaire Classique d’ Histoire Naturelle’ Bory de St. Vincent gives his opinion that the purple dye of the ancients was prepared from the rock- lichen (Roccella), and not from Murex ; as both are found upon or near the sea-shore there is some probability of its truth. It would be an interesting investigation, to ascer- tain whether the purple secretions of many molluscs be not derived from the vegetable food they gather from the shore ; there is one point however which almost prevents the supposition that they feed upon the Roccella, because it grows upon the dry rocks; but it is not impossible that some of the marine A/g@ and Fucoidee may yield the same colouring principles. Should this be the case, Bory de St. Vincent may be right, and we shall not have the interesting legend destroyed which describes the discovery of the Tyrian purple. This legend states that Hercules made a journey = pore POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. along the sea-shore, to visit his ladye-love, who, it appears, was both capricious and imperious; his dog accompanied him, but, being more engaged with thoughts of his stomach than his heart, the animal sought food from the sea-shells which strewed the shore. The lady, with true femmine quickness, noticed that the mouth of the dog was stained with a rich deep purple, the value of which she at once per- ceived; she therefore dismissed her lover in search of this purple dye, telling him not to approach her again until he had procured her a robe of the identical colour which had excited her admiration. Poor Hercules, who had conquered more difficulties than most men, was nearly beaten by this “labour” of love. After much search, he despaired of finding the means of dyeing a robe for his mistress like his dog’s mouth; and was very dejectedly trudging along the same road as before, to plead his almost hopeless case to the exacting fair one. His companion, the dog, accompanied him as usual, and having made so profitable an excursion on the previous occasion, he employed his time in a similar indulgence of his taste for shell-fish. To the master’s surprise, he again saw the animal had acquired a blue nose ; he retraced his steps, watched the actions of the dog, and saw him feed upon that Murea whence the dye is supposed ORCHELLA. 223 to have been obtained. The animals were collected, the robe dyed, and this “labour of Hercules” was accom- plished. The strongest argument in favour of the ancient purple of Tyre being derived from the Roccella, is the following passage from the Old Testament, which would seem to infer that it was collected on the rocks :— « Fine linen, with broidered work from Egypt, was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple Jrom the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.”— - Kzekiel xxvu. 7. The art of dyeing with these lichens, lost during the dark ages, was not revived until the fourteenth century, when it was accidentally discovered, and afterwards practised at Flo- rence by a gentleman of birth named Ferro or Fredrigo, who from this source derived a princely fortune, and founded a family, which from this circumstance bore the name of Oricellari. The Orchella-weed of commerce is brought from various places, each supplying a distinct species, which com- mercially bears the name of the locality. The following valuable list from Pereira gives the botanical names :— 294, POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Angola . : : : . Roccella fuciformis. Madagascar . ; : . LR. fuciformis. Mauritius : : : ee Canary . : : i . LR. tinctoria. Cape de Verd . ‘ : . Le. tinctoria. Azores . : ‘ . LR. tinctoria. Madeira R.tinctoria & fuciformis. South saesbinais me sie nti R. tinctoria. fs small and flat . &. fuciformis. Cape of Good Hope . : . 2. hypomecha. Barbary (Mogadore) ; . LR. tinctoria. Corsican and Sardinian. fh. tinctoria. The Angola and Lima sorts sence the bulk of the Orchella-weed imported ; it therefore consists principally of R. tinctoria (Plate XIII. fig. 69). The colouring matter of these lichens varies slightly ; that of the Angola weed is the best, and consists of a peculiar vegetable acid called erythric ; orsellic acid, of the variety alpha (there being two sorts), constitutes that of the Lima weed. The article known in commerce under the names Archit and Orchid is the colouring matter of Orchella-weed in solution; it is used for dyemg purple and red. It does not produce a fast colour, but so greatly improves other — MYROBALANS. 995 colours, as to be considered indispensable by the dyers ; nevertheless its consumption has very much decreased of late. The imports are about 600 tons per annum. Rock Moss.—Under this name we have occasional im- ports of another lichen, Lecanora tartarea (Plate XIII. fig. 70). It is used to make the article called Cuddear, which is employed in the same way as archil. Cudbear however, besides being in the liquid form, is dried and made into cakes, called cudbear paste; and is also pre- served by dipping linen rags to absorb the colour; these are then dried, and form a considerable article of commerce. Tisso FLtowrrs.—The dried flowers of Butea frondosa. (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae.) These flowers are much used in the East Indies to produce beautiful orange and yellow dyes, and the author has seen one importation into Liverpool, consisting of a small parcel introduced experimentally under the name of Kessaree flowers. Myropatans (commercially Myrabolams).—The dried fruit of Zerminala Chebula. (Nat. Ord. Combretacea.) (Plate XIII. fig. 68.) The Myrobalan is an oval fruit of the shape of a nutmeg, but generally twice as large; they are of a dingy yellow Q 226 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. colour and hard glossy exterior; the pericarp is rather soft, but the interior albumen is very hard, and contains a large quantity of tannin; hence it is useful to the tanner as well as the dyer, both of whom use large quantities of this product. The surface of the fruit has slight longitudinal depressions, which do not appear on the larger myrobalans. The smaller ones, besides this characteristic, are pointed at each extremity, which makes it probable that more than one species is imported in the same lot. | With alum this dye yields a good durable yellow, and with salts of iron a black colour little inferior to that pro- duced by oak-galls. The myrobalan has not been intro- duced more than ten or eleven years, but so useful has it been found, that it has become a very important article in our produce markets, and its consumption is now fully 2000 tons per annum. Gauits, Gatit-Nuts, Oax-Gatuis, and Nut-Gatus, are excrescences formed upon the young twigs of the various species of oak. Galls are also produced upon other plants, but the nut-galls of commerce are produced on the species of oak called Quercus infectorius, a small shrub about five or six feet in height. They originate in the puncture of an insect, Cynips galla-tinctoria. 'The puncture is effected GALL NUTS. peat by the ovipositor of the insect, and an egg is at the same time deposited; an interruption in the ordinary functions of the tissues of the plant takes place at the spot where the egg is inserted; the consequence is, an excrescence of vegetable matter, principally tannin, is formed round the egg, and furnishes a midus for the grub or larva when hatched. When this takes place, the grub eats its way out through the side of the gall, after which the vitality of the excrescence either decreases or ceases altogether. Several varieties of galls are distinguished in commerce, the principal of which are the 4/we and white; the only dif- ference is that the former are gathered before the insect has escaped, and the latter after 1t has emerged. ‘The colour of the blue galls (Plate XIII. fig. 66) is a slaty-blue, and sometimes a greyish-green; the white gall (Plate XIII. fig. 67) is of a light drab colour and much lighter in weight; it is also less valuable than the blue variety. Nut-galls are nearly round, with a few small excrescences over their surface. They yield a fine black colour, with any of the salts of iron, and are used in the preparation of writing-ink ; the quantity imported is annually about 700 tons. A kind of gall has lately been imported from China; Dr. —— - 225 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Pereira describes it in the Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. iii., under the name of Woo-pei-tze ; they are of a very irregular shape, more bulky than the common galls, and _ hollow, the external shell being only about 3; of an inch in thick- ness, very brittle, and of a brownish-yellow colour. Mr. Doubleday says the producing insect in this case is one of the Aphis tribe; they are extremely astringent, but have probably not yet been used in dyeing. The two next dye- stuffs are vegetable extracts. Arnotro, Anatto, Anorra.—The pulp extracted from the seeds of Biwa Orellana. (Nat. Ord. Flacourtiacea.) The seeds of the Srra are enclosed in a three-valved seed- vessel, about an inch in length, and somewhat like the cap- sule of the common beech; it is covered with short hair-like prickles, and is of a rich dark brown colour. When the valves open, the seeds, ten or twelve in number, are seen packed within ; they are about the size of ¢ares, but rather angular, and, being covered with a waxen pulp of a bright orange-colour, are not unlike coral beads. This waxen pulp is removed from the seeds by washing, and forms the anatto of commerce, which usually is of a yellowish-red colour, and about the consistency of palm-oil; this is flag and roll anatto. It is sometimes in a drier state, made into cakes, INDIGO. 229 and termed cake anatto. It gives a fine yellow, and also the nankeen colour, and is much used for colouring cheese. The imports are variable; in 1847, 138 tons were received, and in 1850 only 72 tons. Inpieo (Plate XIV. fig. 74).—A peculiar vegetable colour, extracted from Indigofera tinctoria (Plate XIV. fig. 73) and several other species of the same genus (Nat. Ord. Leguminose). Various other plants also yield indigo, but they do not furnish any portion of that consumed in this country. | This important material was known to the ancients, who used it both as a dye and also as a paint. Dioscorides called it Ivécxov, and Pliny Jndicum ; the former says, indigo comes from the workshops of the dyers, attaching itself to the vessels from which it is removed and dried. Pliny speaks of another kind which is formed spontaneously like a froth upon Indian reeds: the author is of opinion that the article here alluded to is the /ac dye, now so exten- sively used. Like many other valuable discoveries of the ancients, the use of the indigo was lost to Kurope until the middle of the sixteenth century. It was introduced by the Dutch, who imported it from India, but its use was almost pre- 230 FOPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. vented by a strong prejudice which existed against it for a considerable time. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth an edict was passed prohibiting the use of this dye, which was called food for the devil, and this edict was not with- drawn until the reign of Charles If. Its use was also prohibited, or restricted, in Saxony and France. ‘The pre- judice against the use of indigo seems to have arisen fror the ignorance of the dyers as to the means of fixing the colour, so that the cloths, however beautiful to the eye when new, became disfigured immediately they were wetted. Since however its value became known, its culture, previ- ously confined to its native country, India, has spread into the West Indies, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, and other suitable places. It does not exist as indigo in the plant, but when the plant is subjected to a certain process, the blue colour is educed. The largest quantity is yielded from the plants when in flower, but the finer qualities are produced when the flowering has ceased. ‘The process of separating indigo from the plant was first accurately described by Jean Bap- tiste Labat, a Dominican missionary monk ; it is as follows. Just before flowering, the plants are cut down and tied into bundles about five feet im circumference ; these are INDIGO. 231 quickly carried to the factory, allowing no time for the plants to flag and become heated, as the slightest degree of fermentation destroys the indigo. | ‘These bundles are placed in a vat and tightly pressed down by superincumbent weights. Clean water is then ad- mitted, sufficient to cover the whole. After steeping from nine to twelve hours, the liquid, which has acquired a yellow colour, is drawn off by removing a plug from the bottom of the vat. ‘This liquid is received into another vat, where it is kept actively stirred and beaten about with bamboos until a curious granulation takes place; when this has become complete, the granulations settle and the mother-liquor is drawn off. The blue precipitate is then washed with water, and submitted to heat until it appears to effervesce, or ferment, as the planters term it. It is then placed in frames, and submitted to extreme pressure, after which it is cut into cakes about two inches square, dried, and packed into boxes for exportation. The Indigo plant is a shrub from two to three feet high, with pinnate leaves, consisting of from four to seven pairs of leaflets, which are of an obovate form (that is, oval, with the broadest part at the top). The leaves are of a dull bluish-green colour on the upper surface, and slightly pu- 7 | 232 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. bescent or hairy below; the young stems have the same pe- culiar indigo-green tint. The flowers are pea-shaped, borne in short racemes, springing from the axils of the leaves; they are a pale rose or red colour. Besides Indigofera tinc- toria, I. Anil and I. cerulea are much used in the manu- facture of indigo; according to Roxburgh, that from the last-mentioned plant is the best. Owing to the insolubility of indigo in water, the art of dyeing with it consists in a very complicated process, so purely technical that it would be out of place in a popular work like the present. The fine Saxon blue cloths are dyed with this material. The principal varieties recognized in commerce are— Bengal; Oude; Manilla; Madras; Caraccas; Spanish Floras; Spanish Sobres; and Spanish Cortes. The aver- age price is about three shillings per pound. The enormous quantity of 3524 tons of this vegetable extract was imported in 1851, but of this quantity more than one-half was sold to foreign merchants and re-exported to other countries. The colouring matter of Woad (Lsatzs tinetoria), used by the ancient Britons, was analogous to indigo. Lac Dyz in many respects resembles indigo, but, being partly an animal product (a secretion of the Lac insect, Coccus lucca), further notice of it would be out of place in this work. ALKANET ROOT. 233 The substances remaining to be treated of in this chapter are not strictly dye-stuffs, but as their chief use is for colouring other materials, they will be most in place if classed with dyes. AtkanEeT Root. Anchusa tinctoria, (Nat. Ord. Bora gimacea.) The Anchusa is a weedy, diffuse plant, rarely attaining a foot in height; it however forms long woody roots, which contain the colouring principle. It is much cultivated in the south of France and some portions of Germany. Its chief use is in giving a fine crimson colour to oils used in perfumery, and in dyeing wood in imitation of rosewood. For this purpose the colour is separated by soaking the root in oil, and the wood is rubbed with the coloured oil until it is rendered sufficiently dark. About eight to ten tons are _ annually imported, chiefly from France and Germany. Dracon’s Broop.—Under this name several resins are found in commerce, which have a similar appearance, that is, a fine dark cimnabar or Indian-red colour, resinous lustre, and are inodorous and tasteless. They are produced by one or two species of Calamus, or cane-palm, and are used for colouring varnishes and particularly for dyeing horn so as to imitate tortoiseshell. Pe wt Aad — .\) ie s | howe —— ous 7% oe St ay OO eee ae 234 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. The commercial varieties are distinguished according. to the form in which they are imported. They are thus named :— 1. Dragon’s blood in the reed, or Stick Dragon’s Blood ; in sticks about eighteen inches in length, wrapped in a piece of palm-leaf and bound with very thin strips of rattan cane. It is supposed to be produced from the berries of Calamus draco. 2. Dragon’s Blood in drops or beads.—This variety is in small pieces about the size and shape of anutmeg; a num- ber of these are laid lengthwise in a strip of palm-leaf, which is rolled round them, they are then tied with a string between each mass, so that the whole resembles a string of beads. We have the authority of Rumphius for stating that this also is procured from the fruit of C. draco. 3. Dragon’s Blood in tears.—This occurs in loose rounded . lumps, varying in size from a pea to a swan’s egg, and there is some reason for believing that it is furnished by the fruit of Calamus Rotang (Plate VIII. fig. 39). 4. Dragon’s blood in lump.—A very inferior article, which is probably the refuse of the more carefully prepared sorts kneaded in masses, which afterwards are broken into the irregularly shaped pieces in which we receive it. GAMBOGE. 935 The quantity imported of all the varieties is but small, and usually comes from the Hast Indies; it is produced - chiefly in the Indian Arcliipelago. There are two or three similar secretions called Dragon’s Blood, but these are rarely met with. One is produced from the curious Dragon- tree, Dracena draco, a plant of the same order as the lilies (Iihacee) ; another from the Pterocarpus draco, a papilio- naceous tree, allied to that producing the red saunders-wood above described. The imports in 1850 were 117 packages, or about six tons. GampBocr.—A gummy and slightly resinous exudation from the young wood of the Gamboge-tree (Hebradendron camboyioides, Nat. Ord. Clusiacee). (Plate XIV. fig. 75.) Though decidedly not a dye-stuff, this material is much used in colouring, forming a valuable water-colour; and is also used in colouring lacquer varnish for brass-work. There is some reason to believe that gamboge is made from more than one species. It was first introduced to Europe. in 1603, by Admiral Van Neck, who brought it from China under its eastern name of Ghittaiemou. There are three kinds of gamboge :— 1. Pipe Gamboge, which is the best ; it comes from Siam in rolls about an inch and a half in diameter and sometimes 236 - POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. a foot in length, through which there is a hole half an inch in diameter. It has been conjectured that this is from Garcinia Cochinchinensis. 2. Lump Gamboge, in masses, having the appearance of a hardened yellow paste in lumps of one or two pounds’ weight ; this is known to be produced from Hebradendron cambogioides. 3. Gamboge in Tears.—This is in drops called tears, said to be produced from the same species as the last, but the truth of this is much disputed. Besides its use as a colouring material, gamboge is much used in medicine as a drastic purgative. We now take leave of the articles employed in tanning and dyeing ; but before we proceed further it would be well to take a retrospective glance at the materials which have been described. Rough and unattractive to the eye, they nevertheless afford the means ef rendering more durable and beautiful those materials of which our useful and decorative apparel is manufactured. Crude and unpromising they all are to the uninitiated eye, and their value is only shown when the inventive genius of man is brought to bear upon them. DYE-STUFFS. 237 Man protects his feet from cold and other injuries with the skins of beasts: m this he follows the example of his most remote ancestors; but, unlike them, his taste is more refined, and the multiplicity of his demands renders economy necessary ; he therefore taxes the giant oak, the acacia, the mangrove, and other vegetables, to furnish him a chemical agent whereby the offensiveness ‘of the skins he uses is destroyed, and their tendency to decay arrested. He wears his garments of hemp, flax, and cotton, and strives to rival the flowers of the field by fixing their tints on his fabrics: in this he fails,—these colours are as evanescent as the flowers that yielded them. His thinking mind is taxed to remedy the evil, and triumphant intellect leads him forth and points out more suitable materials; he collects them, and adapts them to his purpose. Could an intelligent mind look with one eye upon any of the glittering pageants of the fashionable world, and with the other upon a store of dye-stuffs, what strange reflec- tions would arise! Could it be imagined that all those brilliant colours were derived from such a source >—that those warm and bright tints of red, crimson, and purple, rivalling the rainbow, were derived from the ugly piles of gnarled billets and blocks of Cesalpinias, etc., cut with 238 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. immense labour in tropical forests and transported at im- mense cost to our shores? Look again at the dingy madder, munjeet, and yellow-berries, and who could imagine that the bright charming colours produced to please the eye of taste are drawn from such sources? Once more, look at the rock-weed, without an appearance of colour beyond a dirty drab tint, yielding nevertheless a purple fit for the adornment of princes. How true it is that industry works its own reward, and that the Creator has given to man an inexhaustible treasury from which he may draw all that his wants and luxuries require; exacting only in return—/abour—as the penalty of the first trans. gression. CHAPTER X. GUMS USED IN THE ARTS. Tue term Gum is applied to a variety of articles extremely different in character ; properly speaking it applies only to those natural exudations which, when solidified by drying, are capable of being redissolved by water. They are often transparent, and are more or less coloured, the tint varying from white to reddish-brown. When insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, they bear the name of Guwm-resins ; and if soluble in oil or spirit of tuxpentine they are /eszns. Besides these, under the same chapter we must describe the elastic gum, India-rubber, and the anomalous product Gutta-percha. Of the true Gums there are but a few sorts found in commerce ; they may be all comprised under three heads— 24.0 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Gum Arabic, Gum Senegal, and Gum Tragacanth. The first, Gum AraBic, exudes from Acacia Arabica (Nat. Ord. Leguminose) and other species. The trees producing the varieties of this gum are abun- dant in the East Indies, Egypt, Arabia, and Senegal. The gum was well known to the ancients, and the acacia-tree is supposed to be the Shittah and Shittim-tree spoken of in Scripture (Isaiah xu. 19, Exodus, Leviticus, and other books). Most of the species of Acacia growing in warm countries produce gum, and the different qualities of gum are produced on the same species ; indeed gum arabic appears to be a special product of the genus Acacia, and the gum oozes out more or less pure from the same tree, and from different species indiscriminately. It is gathered without reference to quality, and afterwards sorted. Of that called gum arabic, par excellence, there are three leading. _ sorts,—‘ Hect,’ or the finest white gum; the common gum arabic, which is yellow and reddish; and gum siftings, which consist of the very small particles of both the other sorts separated from the finer pieces by sifting. The following are the permanent varieties which are re- cognized in commerce :— AFRICAN GUMS. Q4) AFrican GuMs :— 1. Gum Arabic,—produced chiefly from Acacia vera and Acacia Arabica. The ‘ Elect’ and ‘Common’ sorts are in tears, or hardened drops, varying in size from a pea to that of a pigeon’s egg, and in colour from a dull white to dark amber. Imported principally from Barbary and Turkey. 2. Barbary Gum.—This is uniformly a dark-coloured variety, resembling the common gum arabic; it is much valued by confectioners for various purposes. It also comes from Northern Africa, chiefly from Mogadore. Supposed to be produced by A. gummifera. 3. Gum Gedda.—A reddish variety of Barbary gun. 4. Gum Senegal,—produced partly by A. Senegal and partly by 4. Seyal. This gum is in fine large roundish tears, or, occasionally, worm-like masses; the largest round tears are the size of pigeons’ eggs, clear and transparent, with sometimes a slight pink tinge discernible. The external surface is dull and shghtly wrinkled from drying, but in- ternally this gum is very clear and transparent; it is much prized by the manufacturers for dressing silks, crapes, etc., and realizes high prices. It originally came only from Se- negal, whence its name, but itis now found at most of the African ports from Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope. R 242 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Iyp1an Gums :— 5. Hast India Gum,—a very dark variety, seldom lighter in colour than the darkest pieces of Barbary gum. It is gene- rally supposed to be produced by 4. Arabica ; but it has been suggested that it is the produce of a totally different plant, Feronia elephantum, a plant of the Orange tribe (Aurantiacee). 6. Gum Babool,—an inferior variety of the above. This gum is in very irregularly shaped pieces, appearing to consist of anumber of small round tears jomed together ; its colour is very dark reddish-brown ; it is tough and cannot easily be powdered. It is from Bengal. 7. Gum Gattie,—a finer gum than either of the above, produced by the A. Aradiea, in the Deccan, Concan, and Guzerat. It is largely imported into London. 8. Gum Oomrawattee, —another variety, of very indiffer- ent quality, from the province of Oomrawattee. All the Hast Indian gums are dark-coloured and trans- lucent; they are tough, and strongly resemble the gum which oozes from the cherry-trees of this country. The gums described are compounds of the two principles arabin and bassorin. The former is easily soluble in cold water; the latter is softened and swells in cold water, which ‘stelell Site GUM TRAGACANTH. 243 it absorbs largely, but is insoluble; the finest qualities contain more of the former, and the inferior more of the latter principle. The quantity imported of all of the above kinds of gum is very considerable; in 1850, 1984 tons, of which 328 tons were Gum Senegal. These gums are chiefly used by the manufacturers of silks, crapes, muslins, etc., for the purpose of stiffening and glazing their fabrics; there are besides various other economic purposes to which they are applied. Gum arabic is said to be so nutritious as food, that the Arabs who gather this gum almost support them- selves with it during the harvest. Gum TracacantH, or Gum Dracon.—-An exudation from the stems of two or three species of Astragalus, another genus of the Natural Order Leguminosae. Tragacanth was known to the ancients, and was by them called rpaydxav@a ; it does not form in tears like the gums previously described, but forms in flakes, which have the appearance of paste forced through narrow splits in the bark. It is white and opake, and the flakes have a curled and twisted appearance. The best tragacanth is said, upon good authority, to be the produce of Astragalus gummifer, a native of Koordistan ; 24:4: POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. P it is quite white and free from impurities. The ordinary kinds, which we receive from Turkey, are produced in Asia Minor and Northern Persia by the 4. verws; and the inferior kinds, which are less flaky, being often in worm- shaped fragments and irregular tears, and generally of a ferruginous colour, are produced by A. strobiliferus. These plants are small shrubs, with clusters of small yellow pea-shaped flowers; they are either terminal (that is, growing at the ends of the branches), or produced in the axils of the leaves (axillary), which are pmnate, with five or six leaflets; the branches are covered with the remains of the petioles of the leaves, which gives them a rough spiny appearance. The singular appearance the flakes of this gum present, has been explained by De Candolle as the result of a — peculiar property, possessed by some portions of the stem more than others, of absorbing moisture from the atmo- sphere ; this property is termed hygrometric. It acts thus:— The tragacanth is a natural secretion of the plant, which is formed by the bark and albumen; it consists of arabin, the soluble principle of gum, and a large quantity of the in- soluble principle, called bassorin. In the damp state of the atmosphere, which is often produced by the heavy mists GUM KUTEERA, 945 which hang upon the hills where the Astragalus grows, the highly absorbent wood takes in the moisture so as to swell considerably, thereby exercising a great degree of pressure upon the bark, which does not give way in proportion to the swelling of the wood, in consequence of which its fluid contents are pressed out, and solidify by drying. Tragacanth is much valued by our manufacturers of crape: its stiffening qualities are very superior, both the brittleness and glossiness of the Acacia gums being absent in tragacanth. The supply is very limited, the imports rarely exceeding 30 tons per annum. Gum Kureera, produced by Stereulia urens (Nat. Ord. Sterculiacee), resembles Tragacanth, and has been im- ported to this country from Coromandel and used as a substitute; it was formerly much used, but has lately be- come rare. Sierra Leone Tragacanth is the produce of another species of Sterculia, S. Tragacantha; it is named thus from the strong resemblance of its exudation to the genuine traga- canth. It is rarely imported. Gum Bassora.—This, as its name implies, is received from Bassora; it consists chiefly of the principle Jassori, to which its name has been given. It is in irregularly shaped 246 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. pieces, variable in size, opake, and yenerally of a light sherry-brown colour. It has been conjectured that a species of Mesembryanthemum yields this gum, but most probably this is an error; we are however totally ignorant of its origin. It is only an occasional import. The Gum-resins and Resins used in the arts are not very numerous, and one of them (Dragon’s Blood) has already been described in the previous chapter; the principal are— Copa, which is of various kinds, yielded by different trees in Africa and South America, the Hast Indies, and Australia. Brazilian Copal is produced by plants of the Natural Order Leguminose, chiefly by some species of Hymenea, and by Zrachylobium Martianum. It is in large angular pieces, often as large as a hen’s egg, very transparent, and of a light yellow colour. African Copal is also in large fragments of rounded tears, or masses; it is darker in colour than that from Brazil, and less transparent, often having a reddish-yellow colour and dusty surface. It is supposed to be produced from a species of Hymeneza; but there are evidently different sorts of African Copal. COPAL. 94.7 East Indian Copal, more generally called Gum Anime, is supposed to be the produce of Hymenea Courbaril. It is in large-sized pieces, often almost square, and long; some specimens in the Author’s collection are about four mches in length, and as regular in shape as a square stick of sealing-wax; others are in long flat pieces, two or three inches in length, an inch and a half wide, and a quarter of an inch thick; they are curiously marked all over with very slight indentations, giving the surface a stippled appearance. Generally however Hast Indian Copal is in irregular masses, having considerable transparency and a bright amber colour. . Australian Copal, Kawrie Gum, Australian Dammar, is the produce of Dammara australis (Nat. Ord. Conifere). (Plate XIX. fig. 99.)—Large quantities of this gum-resin are now imported from Australia. It is probably in larger masses than any other gum-resin ; a specimen in the Liver- pool Collection of Imports measures nearly two feet round at its largest circumference, it is as large as a child’s head ; the colour is a dull amber. All the species of Copal strongly resemble amber ; like it they also frequently contain insects and other extraneous matters; and itis highly probable they are the origin of 24.8 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. that much-valued fossil resin. They are extensively used — in the manufacture of varnish, for which purpose they are dissolved in alcohol or turpentine. Nearly 300 tons were — imported in 1852, chiefly from Africa and Australia. Gum Mastic.—The produce of Prstacia Lentiscus. (Nat. Ord. Anacardiacea.) This plant and its resin were known to the ancients under the name of Schinos (oxivos), and was supposed to have many medicinal virtues. Gum Mastic is in small round or ovoid tears, rarely larger than a pea, and often slightly flattened; they have a light yellow colour, and are only slightly transparent. Mastic has a sweet, resinous smell, and on that account is much used by the Turkish ladies, who chew it to sweeten the breath and preserve the gums. The bush which produces it is a native of Chio, the south of Hurope, and Northern Africa; it is procured by cutting the bark transversely, upon which the mastic exudes in tears, and either hardens upon the tree, or falls to the ground; that which falls constitutes an inferior quality. It is principally used in making varnish, for varnishing pictures, etc., upon paper and canvas; dentists also employ it in filling hollow teeth. About ten or twelve tons are annually imported, chiefly from the Levant. | inte a “¥ ‘ GUM JUNIPER. 249 Gum Juniper, or Gum Sanparacu.—This Gum is pro- duced by Caliiris quadrwalvis, called the Arar-tree in Barbary (Nat. Ord. Conifere). _ It is from the wood of this tree that the Turks form the ceilings and floors of their mosques, it being considered by them almost indestructible. The gum is in long thin tears, rarely exceeding half an inch in length, and one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness; it is not unlike mastic, but is whiter, and has a more resinous and less agreeable odour. It is used for making fine varnishes, and formerly was much used in manufacturing pounce for writing, which was merely powdered sandarach; the invention of blotting-paper has however rendered it useless for this purpose. The imports are about twelve to fifteen tons annually. TuRPENTINE.—An oleo-resin (combination of resin and oil) which flows from incisions made in the stems of various trees belonging to the Coniferous order. The principal are Pinus palustris (Plate XIX. fig. 97) and Pinus Teda. These trees furnish the North American turpentine, which is now almost the only kind imported. They are found in the forests of North Carolina and Virginia, where amazing quantities of turpentine are collected and exported to all parts of the world. It reaches us in barrels holding from 250 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. two to two and a half hundredweights, and has the consis-_ tency and appearance, of honey, sometimes white and some- times yellow in colour, generally much mixed with im- purities, such as fragments of bark, small twigs, etc. When distilled the turpentine of commerce yields from 14 to 16 per cent. of a fine colourless essential oil, usually called Spirits of Turpentine ; the residue is the Rosin or Resin of the shops. The economic purposes to which these two pro- ducts are applied are very various: the former is essential . to the manufacture of paint, and the latter is much em- ployed in the manufacture of common soap, in caulking ships, making the common kinds of sealing-wax, and many other uses. Rosin is of two kinds, yellow and drown or black ; the latter has been called Colophony: the difference depends upon the duration of the process of distillation, the resin getting darker the longer the heat is continued. The quantity of turpentine imported in 1851 was 21,731 tons, besides 12,000 gallons of the distilled oil, and 1900 tons of rosin. There are two or three other products, which are either oleo-resins or products of them.— Tavs, or FRanxrncensz, much used in pharmacy for making plaisters,—a turpentine from which most of the TAR. : 251 essential oil has evaporated naturally. Zuws, properly speak- ing, is the turpentine of Abies resine (Conifere), but the hardened American turpentine above mentioned is more generally substituted for it. Mixed with perfumed gums, it is burned as incense in the performance of Roman Ca- tholic ceremonials. Canapa Batsam, a clear, transparent oleo-resin, which exudes from Adzes balsamea (Conifere) (Plate XIX. fig. 98) ; it is about the thickness of sperm oil, but soon gets less fluid; it is used chiefly for preparing microscopic objects, by rendering them transparent, and in making some var- nishes. TaR is a product procured by a species of distillation termed distillation per descensum, from the roots of various Coniferous trees, particularly Pinus sylvestris (Plate XIX. fig. 100). It was known to the ancients, and the mode of preparation described by Theophrastus was nearly the same as that now employed. A bank is chosen in the forests near which the timber is plentiful. In this bank a circular hole is made, the sides of which are beaten very hard; at the bottom a cast-iron pan, having a spout, is placed; a tube is fitted to the spout, and passes through the side of the bank. The large hole is then filled with billets, nicely cu 252 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. and packed, of the wood of the roots of the pine; the mass ba is then ignited and covered over with soil. Combustion is thus carried on very slowly, and the tar which distils runs down the sides into the iron pan, and is given off through the spout, from which it is received into barrels. Nearly all the tar we receive from abroad is from Russia and Nor- way. In 1851 it amounted to 12,096 /asts measure, or about 24,000 tons weight. Tar is about the colour and . consistency of treacle, and is used chiefly for the purpose of preserving cordage and wood from the effects of the atmosphere. Pircu is procured by distillation from tar, in the same manner as rosin from turpentine. It isa black, solid, and glossy substance, with a brittle, shining fracture ; it is used for similar purposes to tar, with which it is often mixed, and also for caulking the seams of vessels; it was well known to the ancients. ‘The pitch used in this country is mostly home-manufactured. Natural evaporation of the volatile portions of tar will of course convert that product into pitch. ASPHALTE is fossil pitch. The two next substances, though they are not, stelil speaking, gums or resins, are nevertheless inspissated juices INDIA-RUBBER. 2538 procured from trees, in the same way as the turpentines. They have many peculiar properties, rendering them totally distinct from the products already described in this chapter. The first is— Inpra-Rusper, Gum Exastic, or CaoutcHouc.—This now well-known substance is derived _from various plants, but that which reaches England is almost entirely the pro- duce of Siphonia elastica (Nat. Ord. Huphorbiacee). (Plate XVIII. fig. 94:.) The Stphonia (Hevea of Aublet) is a fine tree, attaining a height of sixty to seventy feet, with a stem clear of branches for forty or fifty feet of its height, as round as if turned, with a diameter of about three feet at the base, and lessen- ing very gradually; the bark is of a light stone-colour. In order to procure the caoutchouc, the natives who collect it pierce the stem of the tree with a small pickaxe early in the morning ; around this incision they mould soft clay in the form of a bowl, into which the juice runs pretty freely to the extent of about four ounces daily. They col- lect this juice each evening, and smear it over clay moulds of bottles, balls, shoes, etc. After each process the moulds thus coated are suspended in the smoke of a chimney, where they dry and get a black colour. Successive layers are added until Q54 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. they are of sufficient thickness; the clay is then washed out, and the caoutchouc is ready for market. Formerly much was sent from British India; it was the produce of Ficus elastica (Nat. Ord. Moracee) ; but this is found to be so inferior to that produced by the Brazilian India-rubber tree, that it is almost unsaleable in our markets. This remarkable vegetable production was first introduced in the eighteenth century. When it was introduced as a curiosity from America, it was in the form of bottles, birds, etc., and excited considerable attention in consequence of its elasticity and inflammability. At first it was used almost solely for rubbing out black-lead pencil marks from paper, hence its familiar name. Nothing was known of the plant from which it was produced, or the mode of production, until an astronomical expedition of French academicians went to South America. M. de la Condamine was fortu- nate enough to see the caoutchouc prepared, and forwarded an account of it to the French Academy in 1763. When pure, caoutchouc is very different to the article in common use; instead of black it has a pale yellow colour. It arrives in various forms ; the commonest is Bottle India- rubber: this variety is in various forms, as bottles, shoes, a, - GUTTA-PERCHA. 955 models of animals, balls, etc. Sheet India-rubéer is in flat pieces about a foot broad, two feet long, and about half an inch in thickness ; these pieces are folded lengthwise like sheets of paper: it fetches a high price, and is esteemed the most valuable. And Pipe India-rubber, in tubes a foot long, and one inch and a half in diameter. The property possessed by caoutchouc of dissolving in coal naphtha, renders it extremely valuable in the arts, and its applications have become extremely numerous. The quantity annually imported is less than would be supposed from the extent to which it is used; only between 500 and 600 tons were imported in 1852. Gutra-PercHa (Plate XVIII. fig. 96) in some of its characters strongly resembles caoutchouc ; it is the produce of Isonandra Gutta, Hooker, (Plate XVIII. fig. 95.) The Gutta-percha tree is found growing in Singapore, Borneo, and other Malay Islands, where it is one of the largest timber-trees; its light spongy wood is however of little value. The leaves are alternate on the branches, somewhat leathery in texture, entire in their outline, and obovate in form ; they are green above, and ashining orange colour beneath, and are attached by long petioles. The flowers are produced in little tutts from the axils of the £ 256 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. leaves; they are small, each on a distinct peduncle. They are tubular or monopetalous flowers, with the tube short, and spreading into six elliptical segments. The stamens are twelve in number, as long as the segments of the corolla; the pistil is simple, and longer than the stamens. At present the mode of procuring the milky juice which constitutes the gutta-percha is so destructive, that unless the Malays can be taught to use greater care, the gutta- percha trees of the Malayan Archipelago will soon be ex- terminated. The finest trees are selected and felled, the bark stripped off, and the milky juice which is found be- tween the bark and wood is collected in small troughs made from the stalk of the plantain-leaf; as the juice coagulates it is kneaded into cakes for exportation. Hach tree produces from twenty to thirty pounds of gutta-percha. When hardened by exposure to the air, this gum (Plate XVIII. fig. 96) has a light brown colour resembling leather, a remarkable odour of cheese, and a spongy or cork-like texture; it is mixed with many impurities, which have to be separated by softening it in hot water and re-kneading it; this process is termed “devilling” by the operators. It is imported in blocks of various shapes, but usually in square cakes about eighteen inches in length, nine in breadth, . aie ell ay oe GUTTA-PERCHA, 957 and three inches in thickness. When refined it is more compact, has a darker colour, and, when rolled, a glossy surface ; it is not possessed of the elasticity of caoutchouc, but is flexible, and has the remarkable property of being ductile and plastic when softened by warmth; the conse- quence is, it can be made to take any form, which it retains _ with extraordinary sharpness of outline when cold. Its applications are almost innumerable ; perhaps the most use- ful has been the coating of the wires of the submarine tele- graph, for which, from its perfect non-conducting property, it is most admirably adapted. Dr. Montgomerie was the first to bring Gutta-percha into notice, and the following extract from his account in the ‘ Magazine of Sciences,’ for 1845, has much interest. “I may not claim the actual discovery of gutta-percha, for, though quite unknown to Europeans, a few inhabitants of certain parts of the Malay forests were acquainted with it. Many of their neighbours residing in the adjacent native villages had never heard of it. It was occasionally employed to make handles for parangs, instead of wood or buffalo-horn, So long ago as 1822, when assistant-surgeon at Singapore, I was told of gutta- percha in connection with caoutchouc. There are three va- rieties of this substance—Gutta Girek, Gutta Tuban, and Ss 258 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Gutta Percha (the ch in the latter being pronounced as in perch, a fish). The name is pure Malayan; Gutta meaning the gum or concrete juice of the plant, and Percha the particular tree from which it is obtained. I could not help thinking that the tree itself must exist in Sumatra, and per- haps derive its name from thence, the Malayan name for Sumatra being Pulo Percha; but though the Straits of Malacca are situated only one degree to the north of Sin- gapore, I could not find that the substance has ever been heard of there or in Sumatra.” The imports of this article have increased very rapidly ; they amounted last year (1852) to nearly 1000 tons. Many other gums and resins are imported, but of those undescribed in this chapter the greater part are used in pharmacy, and consequently belong to the chapter on Materia Medica, where a description of some of the most interesting will be found. _. \ CHAPTER XI. OILS, OIL-SEEDS, ETC. THE oleaginous products of plants may be divided into three distinct divisions :—those which are solid at the ordi- nary temperature of our climate; those which are liquid; and those which are liquid and volatile. It is almost im- possible to estimate the value of this class of products, their uses are so numerous and extensive. The African, under the burning tropics, collects a vegetable butter which is of vast importance to railway locomotion ; and the same article enters into the manufacture of soap, the consequent cheap- ness of which has doubtless exercised immense influence upon the sanatory condition of our poorer classes. India sends us another vegetable fat, which also enters into the composition of cheap soap, but is more used for making 260 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. stearine candles and marine soap. Southern Europe sends a sweet vegetable oil, the use of which renders our woollen cloths more durable and beautiful; and the essential oils, which are collected in many parts of the world, enable us to communicate the odour and flavour of the most admired plants to food, confectionery, medicine, and perfumery. All oils naturally formed consist of two other oils, one solid, stea- vine ; the other fluid, oleine or elaine. In some vegetable oils the mixture of the two is owing to the temperature, any decrease of which precipitates the solid from the fluid; as, for instance, when olive oil is acted upon by cold. Oleine and stearine are oxides of a peculiar substance called by chemists g/yceryle, from its liquorice-like sweetness ; in other words, oleine consists of an acid called oleic acid, and this sweet substance glyceryle, whilst stearine is a compound of stearic acid and glyceryle. This peculiar composition of oils, both animal and vegetable, leads to their great value in the formation of soaps, the process of which consists in combining either soda or potash with the stearic and oleic acids; this is easily effected, as the acids have a greater affinity for the alkalies than for the glyceryle. The solid vegetable fats are— PALM OIL. 261 Patm Ort.—Principally produced from the fruit of the Palm Elais Guineensis. (Nat. Ord. Palmacee.) (Plate VIII. fig. 42.) It is also produced by another species of EHlais, LH. melanococca. The fruit of the Alazs Guineensis forms an immense head, resembling a monstrous pine-apple; it consists of a great number of drupes of a bright orange-yellow colour; these drupes have a thin external skin (epicarp), through which the yellow oily pulp (sarcocarp) is seen ; in this is the hard stone (endocarp), which occupies about one-fourth of the whole bulk of the drupe, the sarcocarp constituting nearly all the remaining portion, of which two-thirds are oil or palm butter. Palm oil is of a beautiful deep orange-yellow colour, be- coming lighter by exposure to the air and light; it has a sweet violet odour when fresh. Besides oleine, it consists of a distinct principle called palmitine, taking the place of ordinary stearine, of which probably it is only a variety. When we reflect that palm oil is used in Africa as butter by the natives, over an immense and thickly populated portion of that continent, the quantity imported into this country is really astounding, and gives us an idea of the prolific nature of these palms, greater than we could other- 262 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. wise have conceived. Let us take a glance at its uses: first, in its native country it furnishes, under the name of ghea (butter), a portion of the food of the natives, probably not less than a million and a half in number; then in our own and other countries it forms a moiety of the antifric- tional compound which gives safety to the wheels of every railway-carriage : these (according to Mr. Braithwaite Poole, probably the best authority im the kingdom) are in our country no less than 108,284 in number, representing a capital of £15,657,890; we may then double this for the whole of the European railways, and without exaggeration may affirm that palm oil assists the motion of railway car- rlages so numerous as to be worth in round numbers £32,000,000; besides which it forms a large proportion of one-third at least of the common hard soap manufactured in this country, or in figures, one of the principal con- stituents of 17,800 tons of hard soap. These results show to what an extent Huropean enterprise has stimulated the industry of the negroes of Africa, furnishing them with a trade more lucrative than the demoniacal traffic which pre- viously constituted their chief occupation. The numbers employed in collecting the fruit, in pressing the berries, and in conveying the oil to the coast merchants, must be im- _ COCOA-NUT OIL. 263 mense, and the time cannot be far distant, if nature con- tinues her beneficence, when labour will be so much wanted on the coast of Africa that the sale of human beings will be no longer possible. The imports of palm oil to England alone are nearly 50,000 tuns per annum. The Oil Palm, besides this palm butter, yields a limpid oil from the hard stony endocarp; very little of the oil has been imported, but under the name of palm-nuts, these seeds have been brought to this country, for expression of the oil, in considerable quantities. Cocoa-nur or Coxer-nur Om—is another solid vege- table fat, produced by the Cocoa-nut Palm (Cocos nucifera). (Plate IX. fig. 44.) This fat is expressed from the white albumen of the cocoa- nut kernel; it is as white as lard and rather harder, having a peculiar odour, which is not very agreeable, or rather it becomes very disagreeable if often smelled, even to those who at first did not dislike it, otherwise it would be much more extensively used both in soaps and pomatums; in the former it is sometimes used for the very coarse kinds, and also for marine soap; it is chiefly used for making cocoa stearine (or cocinime), of which excellent candles are manu- 264 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. factured. The imports in 1851 were 4902 tons, almost the whole of which came from Manilla and Ceylon. The fluid oils used in manufacturing processes are— Ottve Or~—expressed, or otherwise obtained, from the fruit of the common Olive (Olea Europea, Nat. Ord. Olea- cee). (Plate IV. fig. 16.) The olive had already been described in the chapter on fruits, therefore the oil now only remains to be described. It is a fine thin fluid, varying in colour from a light green to a pale straw-colour; when exposed to a temperature but little below the average in this country, its stearme sepa- rates and falls down in white flocculent masses; and the whole of it congeals at the freezing-point of water. It is generally obtained by expression in a rude mill, consisting of a large conical mass of stone with an axis of wood, to which a horse is attached. The pressing stone revolves upon a circular stone platform, around which is cut a small groove ; as the olives are crushed, the oil runs into the groove, from which it is conducted into vessels placed to receive it. - It varies very much in quality, from the fine Lucca Oil used in salads, to the almost rancid Spanish kinds, which are used for viling machinery. The chief use of olive oil is in dressing woollen cloths. We receive it in great quantities ALMOND OIL. 265 from Galipoli, in the Neapolitan dominions, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, for manufacturing and machinery purposes ; and the finer table-kinds from Florence, Leghorn, Lucca, Genoa, and the South of France. In 1851, 20,783 tuns, of 252 gallons each, were imported. AtmonpD Ot is obtained by expression from the sweet and bitter Almond (Amygdalus communis, varieties a and 8). It is a beautiful clear straw-coloured oil, inclining to yellow ; its chief use is in perfumery and for lubricating the machi- nery of clocks, watches, and other small pieces of mecha- nism. It is very rarely imported, being principally ex- pressed in this country. Rave Oi is expressed from the seeds of the Rape (Brassica Napus, Nat. Ord. Crucifere).—This oil is rather browner and darker than olive oil, but when refined is nearly as limpid; it is much used for burning in lamps, especially in France. We imported 107,029 quarters of ape-seed, and about 300 tuns of the oil, in 1851, chiefly from France and Germany. Seep O1~.—Under this name a large quantity, amount- ing now to nearly 1000 tuns per annum, of a fine odour- less oil, resembling rape-oil, of a sherry-brown colour, is imported into Liverpool from Lisbon. It is expressed 266 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. from the nuts or seeds of Jatropha Curcas (Nat. Ord. Hu- phorbiacea), a plant closely allied to the Croton, so cele- brated for its medicinal oil: it was first used in Lisbon by the contractor for lighting the public streets, who made it from a quantity of the seeds brought from the Cape de Verd Islands. So useful was it found as an oil for burning, that eventually it took the place of every other, and the streets of that capital are now wholly lighted with seed ovt, a name given for the purpose of hiding its real origin. The widow of the above-mentioned contractor now carries on a large trade in this oil, and it has been found to answer in this country for cloth-dressing, which, in consequence of the irregular supply of olive oil, makes it a very valuable acquisition. ‘The only objection to its employment in the factories is its highly drastic property, which renders its use somewhat imconvenient amongst ignorant and careless workpeople, who are apt to taste the oils they use while working. The Jatropha seeds are about half an inch in length, of a slightly flattened oval figure, of a dull brown, sometimes almost black colour. ‘Their first import into Liverpool, under the name of Croton nuts, led to much mischief; the persons employed in the unlading, misled by the term nwt, TEEL SEED. 267 finding them sweet to the taste, ate them, until they pro- duced a distressing illness; numbers of poor children also suffered from finding them upon the quays, and many were taken to the hospitals in consequence. ‘The nuts are only imported occasionally. Linsrzp.—The seed of Linum usitatissimum (Nat. Ord. LInnacea.)—This plant was described under the name of Flax. Linseed oil is not often imported, but the seed, which is smali, flat, oval, and of a shining bright brown colour, is imported in very large quantities; in 1851 the imports were 608,986 quarters, the greater part of which was from the East Indies and Russia; smaller quantities were received from Prussia, Germany, Egypt, and America. TreL Seep, Tin Seep, GINGELY or GINGILLIE SEED, Szrsamum Seep, and Bennie Sexp.—Under these various names we receive the seed of Sesamum orientale (Nat. Ord. Pedaliacee). Its oil, owing to the readiness with which it becomes rancid, is seldom or never imported, but large quantities of the seed are brought from the East Indies, Egypt, Africa, and occasionally from Brazil. The plant thrives everywhere in the tropics, and is largely cultivated all through India, where its oil is much esteemed; it is clear, limpid, and when fresh, as sweet as almond oil. The ay a aa a rT 968 CC POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. seeds are about the size of linseed, but though flattened and oval, they are not thin at the edges like that seed; their colour is of various shades from ash-grey to deep brown; the oil contained in them is in very large proportion. Niger Seep is the produce of Gwizotia oleifera; the Verbesina sativa of Lessing, (Nat. Ord. Composite.) This is another oil-seed from India, where it is very extensively cultivated. In that country the oil is variously named in different localities, as Ram-til, Kala-til, Noog, Valisaloo noone, etc.; it is very thin, contains but little stearine, and is useful in painting, and various other purposes requiring a very thin oil. 700 or 800 quarters is about the greatest amount of the seed received here in one yéar. ‘The oil has not been imported. CartHamus Szsep.—The seeds of the Safflower plant, Carthamus tinctorius (Nat. Ord. Composite). These seeds are about the size of small sunflower seeds, exactly the same shape, and of a cream-white colour. In India, from whence they come, the oil is expressed in large quantities, under the name of Kooswm Oil. Considerable imports of the seed have been received, and the oil is said to be in great de- mand for making fancy soaps, but the Koosum oil has never been imported. POPPY SEED. 269 Mustarp Srnp.—The seed of a species of Mustard, S7- napis glauca (Nat. Ord. Cruciferae), is very largely imported from the Hast Indies for the expression of oil; it is a small, round, brown seed, very closely resembling rape-seed ; it is probably mixed with other species, as 8. Zoria and S. nigra, natives of the Hast Indies. Corron Srmp.— The seeds ‘of Gossypiwm herbaceum (Nat. Ord. Malvacee) are often imported for expressing ; the oil they yield is used as a substitute for olive oil. Cotton-seeds are about the size of small peas, of a deep brown colour; they are usually loose, but sometimes come just as they are taken from the capsules, that is, they are held in kidney-shaped clusters, four of which, with the cotton, occupy each capsule; each cluster contains about ten seeds. The imports have hitherte,been small, and always from the United States of America. Poppy Seep (Papaver somniferum, Nat. Ord. Papave- race@) is often imported from India and the European Continent ; the oil expressed from it is so bland and sweet, as to equal the finest produce of the olive. In France, where it was first introduced, poppy-seed oil was subjected to a prohibitory decree, owing to the mistaken idea, that, being derived from the same poppy-heads that yield opium, 270 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. it must necessarily be poisonous. Since this fallacy has been exposed, and the prohibition removed, poppy-oil has been much used in France as a substitute for olive oil, both in the manufactures and for table use; and latterly several imports of the oil have been received in this country. Grounp Nout. Arachis hypogea. (Nat. Ord. Legumi- nose.) (Plate VI. fig. 31.) Large consignments of this seed are from time to time received from the African coast for the expression of oil. ‘The produce is a fine thin straw- coloured oil, resembling poppy oil and the finer varieties of oil of olives. The oil itself has been imported occasionally, but in small quantities. It is very free from stearine, and is consequently used extensively by watch-makers and others for delicate machinery. In India its use in cooking and for the table is very extensive; it is there called Katchung Ou. Several other seeds are used for the expression of their oil; thus, the common Hazel-nut, Corylus Avellana, which yields a fine limpid oil, so free from stearine, that it is pre- ferred before all others for watch machinery. Its value in this respect can hardly be too highly rated, for independent of its perfect liquidity, it is slow in drying, consequently requiring only an occasional renewal. ‘To this quality BEN NUTS. 271 probably one-half of the value of our watches is owing, for without such a means of diminishing the friction, the delicate machinery would soon be disordered by injurious wearing of the pinions, axles of the wheels, and other rapidly moving parts. Brn Nots, called in France Pots qguéniques and Chicot, are also imported from the Hast Indies, and yield an oil which is highly prized by painters in consequence of its fine limpid and rapid-drying qualities. Itis the seed of Moringia ptery- gosperma, a small tree of rather anomalous character. In consequence of its leguminous-looking capsules and doubly pinnated foliage, it was referred by De Candolie and others to the Natural Order Leguminose ; but it has been demon- strated by Mr. Robert Brown and others, that it is totally distinct from that Order: that eminent botanist constituted the Order Moringee for this small group of plants; but as the terminology of Dr. Lindley has been generally adopted in this work, Woringacee will be the most proper name for the Natural Order. The Ben-nuts are somewhat larger than horse-beans; they are nearly round, inclining to oval, with a slight flattening on two sides. Their colour is a light ash-grey, with a polished shining porcelain appearance. They are of rare occurrence in our markets. _ 272 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Tue Hssentrat Orts differ materially from .the fixed oils already described, both in their characters, and also in the methods by which they are obtained. As a group, they are again divisible into three distinct classes, distinguish- able by their chemical characters. Thus, the first class are simple compounds of carbon and hydrogen (C H); by chemists they are termed xon-oxygenated oils. They are very inflammable, burning like coaé-gas, of which they appear to be a mere concentration. Although they con- tain no oxygen when pure, if exposed to the atmosphere ‘they gradually absorb it, and are converted into resins. They are very volatile, and rapidly decrease by evaporation at the ordinary temperature; if the temperature be raised, they evaporate entirely. They are nearly all obtained by distillation. The Oil or Spirit of Turpentine, distilled from common turpentine, is the type of this class. They are all odoriferous, usually having the odour of the material from which they are procured. Besides turpentine, the other non-oxygenated oils met with in commerce are— Oit or Essence or Lemons.—This oil exists so abundantly in the cysts which are found in great numbers in the flavedo, or yellow portion of the rind of the fruit of ESSENTIAL OILS. ya it: the lemon, that it can be obtained either by expression or distillation. The former process is generally adopted. It is imported in large copper vessels called cydinders, varying in size, but rarely exceeding six gallons. It is received chiefly from Messina and Palermo, but considerable quan- tities are also imported at times from Portugal. About 10,000 Ibs. are annually brought to this country. It is used in confectionery and perfumery. Or or Essence or Bercamor.— This oil is obtained in the same manner as the last, from the rind of the Berga- mot Orange, Citrus Bergamia (Aurantiacee). About 8000 Ibs. are annually brought from Sicily, the whole of which is consumed in perfumery. Ort oF OraneGe is obtained by distillation with water from the rind of the Sweet Orange. Used in perfumery. Ort oF Orance Lear, or EssENcE pE Prrir Grain, is procured by distillation from the green leaves of the Orange-tree. Also used by perfumers. Ort or Nerowi, Esszenczk or Neroui, or Ort oF Orance Frowers, distilled from the flowers of various species of the orange tribe, but chiefly from those of the Common Orange. This oil constitutes a very delicate per- fume; the odour of the favourite Hau de Cologne is owing ¥ 274 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. to its presence, that perfume, when properly prepared, being a distillation of orange-flowers with alcohol. Spurious Hau de Cologne is made by dissolving the Oil of Neroli in weak spirit-of-wine. There is a deliciously scented oil called Crrronetzs, imported from Ceylon in small quantities; it is generally said to be from Citron-flowers. The author is very doubt- ful of this origin, and believes rather that it is the produce of one of the species of Andropogon, to which genus the Lemon-grass of India also belongs. It usually arrives in cases with the lemon-grass oil, a case often consisting of twelve small bottles, or six of each of these essential oils ; besides which it apparently belongs to the oxygenated essential oils, whereas all the other volatile oils procured from the Aurantiacee are non-oxygenated. The Oil of Ce- tronelle is largely used for scenting the soap called Honey Soap, now much used. Ort or Junreer, distilled from the berries and young shoots of the Common Juniper (Juniperus communis: Coni- fera). (Plate XIX. fig. 101.) It is used in giving a spu- rious flavour to gin, and also in pharmacy. From Germany. The Second Class of Essential Oils contain oxygen in addition to carbon and hydrogen (C H O); they are con- ia ESSENTIAL OILS. 275 sequently termed oxygenated oils. The following oils of this class occur i commerce :— Ort oF LavenpeER, distilled from the flowers of the Com- mon Lavender, Lavandula spicata (Nat. Ord. Labiate), is imported from France and Germany, but the foreign oil is much inferior to that made in this country. Very large quantities of this and several other essential oils have been manufactured for some time at Mitcham, in Surrey, and the English essential oils have gained pre-eminence over all others. It is exclusively used in perfumery. Ort or Rosemary, distilled from the leaves of Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis, Nat. Ord. Labiatz).—This oil is very rarely imported, as it is procured in great abundance and at a very cheap rate in Hngland. Oz or Tuyme, Orn or OrntGanum.—These two names would imply that the oil was distilled from two plants, the Thyme and Marjoram, but it is now generally understood that the common thyme, Zhymus vulgaris (Nat. Ord. La- biate), yields the oil which bears these names; rt is dis- tilled from all parts of the plant. Occasional imports are received from Hamburg, and latterly from the United States. It is used in scenting Windsor soap and in vete- rinary pharmacy. 276 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Ort or Peppermint is distilled from the leaves of the Peppermint, Mentha piperita (Labiate). It is much used in confectionery and pharmacy. Besides the home manu- facture, which is most highly esteemed, we receive about 12,000 lbs. annually from Germany and the United States. Ort or Mint is manufactured by distillation from the leaves of the Common Spearmint of the herb-garden, Men- tha viridis. This, and the essential oil of another Labiate plant, Mentha Pulegium, the Pennyroyal, are chiefly used in pharmacy, and consequently hardly belong to this chapter. They are rarely imported. Orit oF Croves, distilled from the dried flower-buds (Cloves) of the Clove-tree. Ort or Nurmecs, distilled from the various kinds of nutmeg. , Ort or Pimento, distilled from the Jamaica Allspice. Oris oF Crynamon and Cassia, distilled from the Cinna- mon and Cassia barks; the former is imported from Ceylon, and the latter from China, in considerable quantities. These essential oils of the spices are used both in con- fectionery and pharmacy. Om or Awntserp, distilled from the seeds (fruit) of Pimpinella Anisum (Nat. Ord. Umbellifere). It has the ESSENTIAL OILS. ba singular property of congealing at the temperature of 54° Fahrenheit. It is largely imported from the Hast Indies and from Germany; as much as 4500 lbs. have been im- ported in one year. It is used in flavouring spirits and cordials, and also in pharmacy. Oit or Caraway is distilled from the seeds (fruit) of Carum Carui (Umbellifere). Small quantities are occasion- ally imported from Germany, much more is home manu- factured and exported. Its uses are similar to those of the preceding one. Ort or Roses, Attar oF Roszs, Orro or Rosrs.— This most valued essential oil is distilled from the petals of one or more species of Rose (the exact species are not known to Europeans) ; its costliness can be easily understood when it is known that the produce of 10,000 rose-bushes, taken at 100,000 roses, is required to yield 180 grains, or three drachms, of pure Attar. Being the favourite perfume of the whole civilized world, we are lost in amazement when we attempt to reflect upon the quantity of rose-leaves re- quired in this manufacture. England alone receives about 1000 lbs. annually, and France probably half as much more. In eastern countries it is a most essential luxury; “the Attar Gul’s Perfume” is found at the toilet of every 278 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Asiatic beauty. In Cashmere, the harvest of rose-leaves is celebrated as the festival of the year, and its description in Moore’s exquisite poetry is now universally known :— ‘‘ Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, With its roses, the brightest that earth ever gave?” * * * * * ** But never yet, by night or day, In dew of Spring or Summer’s ray, Did the sweet valley shine so gay As now it shines—all love and light! Visions by day and feasts by night! A happier smile illumes each brow, With quicker spread each heart uncloses, And all is eestasy,—for now The Valley holds its Feast of Roses.” We receive the attar from Smyrna and Constantinople either in very small flat square phials, holding only a few drops of the precious oil, or else in larger bottles, contain- ing from two to eight ounces. In either case the bottles are of white flint-glass, ornamented with gilding, and the larger ones usually contain the better quality of oil. Like Oil of Aniseed, it has the property of congealing at the or- dinary temperature of this country; at 80° Fahr. attar of roses is a crystalline solid mass ; its colour is usually a light yellow or straw-colour. Its high price leads to much adul- teration. | ESSENTIAL OILS. ° 279 ~ Orn or Inpran Grass, Roosa Or, or Roosa-KE-TIL —is distilled from the leaves of Andropogon Calamus- aromaticus, supposed by Dr. Royle to be the sweet calamus mentioned in Exodus xxx. 23, and the sweet cane, in Jere- miah vi. 20, and the xadapos apwpatixos of the ancient Greeks. It has a strong rose scent, too strong to be agree- able; in India its use is chiefly as a rubefacient in cases of rheumatism, but im this country it is most probably used for adulterating attar of roses. A genuine sample of this oil was contributed to the Liverpool Collection of Imports by the author, who received it from his friend Dr. Schol- field, of Birkenhead, a gentleman curious in Indian pro- ducts, of which he has a choice collection. Ort or Luemon-Grass—is distilled from another of the scented grasses, Andropogon citratum ?* Dr. Pereira con- founds this with the Oil of Cetronelle, which however he rightly attributes to an axdropopogon ; but the author has had many and ample opportunities of seeing both these oils, often imported in the same case; the one called lemon-grass (Andropogon Schenanthus most probably) has the odour of * In the Liverpool Botanic Gardens there is a tropical Andropogon, with a powerful verbena scent, which the curator, Mr. Shepherd, pointed out to the author as Andropogon Schenanthus, It is most probably the Molucca Lemon-grass. _ 280 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. the scented Verbena (Aloysia citriodora), and is used to imi- tate the perfume of that favourite plant ; both it and the Ce- tronelle Oil (? Andropogon citratum) are made at Baddegama, near Galle, inCeylon ; the former is always labelled Essential Oil of Molucca Lemon-Grass, and the latter Oil of Cetronelle. The lemon-grass oil by exposure absorbs oxygen much more readily than that of Cetronelle, and consequently soon be- comes resinous. A specimen which has been in the author’s collection about twelve months, contains small floating spiculee of stearoptene. ‘There are two or three other essen- tial oils from the grasses of this genus; and probably the precious oil of spikenard mentioned in the Scriptures was derived from one of them, most likely from A. Jwarancusa. Many other oils occasionally find their way to this coun- try, but they do not constitute regular articles of commerce, or they are exclusively medicinal, and will be mentioned in the chapter on Materia Medica. We now proceed to the Vegetable Tallows and Waxes of various kinds. VeceraBLe Tattow (Indian, from Singapore), obtained from the fruit of some plants of the Natural Order Dipée- racee. ‘This peculiar vegetable fat has been frequently im- ported lately in small quantities experimentally ; it is totally distinct from the Piney Tallow of the East Indies, which is VEGETABLE TALLOW AND WAX. 281 also produced by a Dipterocarpous plant (Vateria Indica) ; both are imported from India, but the former, instead of being white, is of a yellowish-green colour, evidently from the admixture of some balsamic resin, which also gives an agreeable balsamic odour to this substance. Its chief value is for the manufacture of candles, which give out a sweet smell in burning. It resembles ‘ordinary tallow in its con- sistency, but small particles appear through its substance, having a resinous lustre. Vegetable Tallow (Chinese, from Canton) is procured from the seeds of Croton sebiferum (Nat. Ord. Huphorbia- ce@). 'This kind is very different from the last, being of a cream-white colour, a tallowy odour, hard and brittle, and usually flaky, or in plates about an inch thick, or in lumps bearing the form of some vessel into which it has been melted ; the flakes are apparently caused by different melt- ings being poured into the same pan. It becomes brown by exposure, and evidently contains some acid in abun- dance, probably crotonic ; only a few small lots have been imported experimentally.. VeceraBLe Wax (South American).—A singular pro- duct from the leaves of Corypha certfera, the Carnauba Palm. (Nat. Ord. Palmacee.) (Plate VIII. fig. 38.) 282 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. - The Carnauba is one of the finest palms of the Brazilian forests. Its fan-like leaves are placed in a tuft at the top of a hard solid stem growing from thirty to forty feet in height, the stalks of the leaves themselves being six or eight feet in length. When the leaves have attaimed perfection, they are found to be beautifully varnished with a thin coat- ing of vegetable wax; they are then gathered, and laid in a cool dry place on cloths, where they naturally wither and shrink. In consequence of shrinking, the coat of wax cracks and peels off in small flakes; these are from time to time shaken off and collected. When sufficient of the wax is thus obtained, it is melted into small earthen pans, and when cooled turned out. The lumps imported bear the shape of the utensil in which they have been melted; they jare about three or four pounds’ weight each, of a light sulphur- yellow colour, with a lustre between that of wax and resin, and rather brittle; five or six hundredweight are annually imported, chiefly from the province of Ceara in Brazil. Its use is said to be for mixing with common bees’-wax, to give it greater firmness in various of its applications. Vegetable Wax, or Myrtle Wax (of North America).— Obtained by boiling and pressing the berries of the wax- bearing Candle-berry Myrtle (Myrica cerifera, Nat. Ord. zr VEGETABLE WAX AND OILS. 283 Myricacee.) ‘The wax exudes from the berries and forms a scum on the water in which they are boiled; this is col- lected and re-melted; it has a greenish-yellow colour and aromatic smell. In the United States this wax is used in country places to make candles; it rarely comes to England, except in very small quantities, and chiefly as a matter of curiosity. To the student in Economic Botany, the Oil and Wax series is especially interesting, from the extreme value of their organic combinations in the various arts of civilized life. What would machinery be without oils? Even if the various engines of human invention could be made to work without the lubricating help of vegetable or animal oils, the wear from friction would be so great and rapid that the use of machinery would be almost doubled in cost- liness, and consequently would, in most instances, be un- available. ‘Those mentioned in this chapter are the most common commercial substances of this series, but there is a vast number which would be valuable if made known to the commercial enterprise of our merchants. CHAPTER XII. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. “‘ Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus’ black servant, negro fine ; Sorcerer, that mak’st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion.” Inciupep in this chapter will be found a collection of vege- table substances either more or less connected with the arts and manufactures, but not capable of being correctly ar- ranged under any of the preceding chapters. Foremost in the list stands that poisonous weed on which Charles Lamb wrote the above lines, when striving to release himself from its debasing thraldom. Topacco—consists of the dried leaves of several species of Nicotiana (Nat. Ord. Solanacea). TOBACCO. 285 We have shown, inthe history of Hemp, that the practice of inhaling the smoke of plants for the excitement or stupor thereby caused, did not originate with tobacco ; for although Humboldt has produced sufficient evidence to prove that the natives of Orinoko cultivated and used tobacco from time immemorial, there is equally strong historic proof that various herbs were used by the ancients of the Old World for the same purpose. Though only known to Europeans in 1492, when Columbus and his companions first saw the natives of Cuba smoking cigars, it has rapidly spread over the whole world, and civilized men have adopted as a luxury what in all probability was originally used as a necessity in the lowest states of savage life. It is impossible to say what accident first led to the use of this weed, but it is not improbable that its leaves were first chewed by some starv- ing savage in the desperation of hunger: its remarkable effects im allaying the cravings of the stomach would be in- stantly appreciated ; other modes of using it would soon be developed by accidental causes, and it would not be wonder- ful if the untutored savage should highly value properties to him so useful and extraordinary. Tobacco was introduced to this country by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, and was immediately adopted by some of 286 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. the beaus of the court, who prided themselves m aping the hardy voyagers who had trod the wilds of Virginia. Sir Walter Raleigh and a few other great names gave still greater encouragement to its adoption, so that before the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign the habit was by no means uncommon. Nevertheless its pernicious effects were clearly seen by those not prejudiced in its favour, and strong efforts were made in every country to resist the progress of the evil. A German writer is said to have collected the titles of one hundred different works condemning its use, which were published within half a century from the date of its intro- duction to Europe. In Russia it was prohibited, and the smoker was threatened with the knout for the first offence, and death for the second. Pope Urban VIII. fulminated a bull against the use of tobacco, but the anathema fell to the ground. The priests and Sultans of Turkey and Persia declared smoking a sin against their holy religion ; but the Turks and Persians became the greatest smokers in the world. In our own country James I. wrote a treatise against it, entitled ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco,’ which excited much attention, but, instead of checking the use of the weed, probably introduced it to the notice of many who rey a oa TOBACCO. 287 had not before known of it. This evil, like many others, throve by persecution, until it became almost intolerable, even ladies indulging in its use; and the same untenable arguments were adduced in its defence which in the present day are in the mouth of every juvenile aspirant for the manly power of smoking; the pipe and cigar having as- sumed the place of the toga virilis. We have an amusing proof of the favour it found with the fair sex in a letter written in 1700, by the humorous writer Tom Brown. “ To an Old Lady that smoked Tobacco. « MapamM,— “Though the ill-natured world censures you for smok- ing, yet I would advise you, Madam, not to part with so innocent a diversion. In the first place it is healthful, and, as Galen rightly observes, is a sovereign remedy for the toothache, the constant persecutor of old ladies. Secondly, tobacco, though it be a heathenish weed, it is a great help to Christian meditations ; which is the reason, I suppose, that recommends it to your parsons, who could no more write a sermon without a pipe in their mouths than a con- cordance in their hands; besides every pipe you break may serve to put you in mind of mortality, and show you 288 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. upon what slender accidents man’s life depends. I knewa _ Dissenting minister who on fast-days used to mortify upon a rump of beef, because it put him, as he said, in mind that all flesh was grass; but I am sure that much more is to be learned from tobacco: it may instruct you that riches, beauty, and all the glories of the world, vanish like a vapour. Thirdly, it is a pretty plaything. Fourthly and lastly, it is fashionable, at least ’tis in a fair way of becom- ing so. Cold tea, you know, has been a long while in re- putation at Court, and the gill as naturally ushers in the pipe, as the sword-bearer walks before the Lord Mayor.” In our own time the cigarette is by no means uncom- mon between the ruby lips of the fair dames of Portugal and Brazil, but thanks to that vice of selfishness which seems to be fostered by tobacco, it is not tolerated in other civilized countries as one of the pleasures of the fair sex, though confessedly an exquisite enjoyment to their male companions. | Medical men are much divided in opinion as to the effects of smoking tobacco as a regular habit ; the evidence pro and con. would at first sight appear to be pretty nearly balanced, but of those who speak favourably of its effects bas = ES TOBACCO. 289 many are smokers themselves, and a great allowance must be made for prejudice, thereby giving a preponderance of authority for disapproving the practice. Its power of resist- ing contagion, formerly held forth as one of its strongest apo- logies, is now disbelieved by all well-informed physiologists ; whilst its injurious effects upon the digestive and secretory powers of many constitutions requires no confirmation. Tobacco is used in the form of dried leaves coarsely broken (German Knaster); the dried leaves cut into fine threads (Cut Tobacco) ; the dried leaves pressed into cakes, having been previously moistened with treacle or sugar.and water (Cavendish and Negrohead), used for chewing and smoking ; the dried leaves moistened with treacle and water, beaten until they are soft, and then twisted into a sort of string (called Pigtail) ; the dried leaves and the dried stalks ground into a powder and baked, or roasted as it is called, used as snuff, which is variously scented to suit the different olfactory tastes; the dried leaves deprived of their midribs and wound into a sort of spindle-form, seldom more than three inches in length, known as cigars, and a variety in the form of cylinders cut straight at each end and thicker at one end than the other, known as cheroots. Besides these preparations for smokers there are cigarettoes or cigarettes, U 290 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. made by rolling up a very small quantity of cut tobacco ina | small piece of paper, or, what is generally preferred, a piece of the leafy covering of the Indian corn: these are smoked the same as cigars, usually by very moderate smokers. The varieties of tobacco found in commerce are very numerous, and are derived from various species of Nicotiana indigenous to Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. ‘The fol- lowing list comprises most of the sorts known. * AMERICAN ToBaccos :— Virginian, Maryland, and Kentucky, imported in hogs- heads, the leaves tied into small bundles called hands, some- times with the leaf entire, sometimes with the midrib removed: in the latter case it is termed “ strips.” These three varieties are all the produce of Nicotiana Tabacum ; they are cultivated very extensively in the States after which they are named. Colour yellowish-brown. Orinoko.—A_ less common sort, derived from Nicotiana macrophylla. Native of America. Columbian.—Probably from WV. Lowxensis, a native of New Granada. Brazil Leaf and Roll.—The roll tobaccos of South America are prepared by-rolling or twisting the leaves into a kind of loose rope an inch or more in diameter; this TOBACCO. 291 rope is coiled up into cylindrical rolls of about two feet in length and one foot in diameter. Porto Rico, Puerta Ca- bello, Maracaibo, and Varinas Roll, are all most probably produced by the perennial tobacco of Buenos Ayres, JV. glauca, and not improbably from other native species. Colour light brown. Cuba, Yara, and Havana.—This tobacco, of which the fine Havana cigars are made, is the produce of the annual species, V. repanda, a native of Cuba; it is the WV. dyrata of some authors. - Colour dark brown. Peruvian and Chilian.—Probably from WN. andicola, a native of the Peruvian Andes. Astatic ToBaccos :— Kast Indian and Manilla is produced from N. rustica, var. 8, Asiatica. The N. rustica is a native of Kurope, Asia, Africa, and America; there are several varieties of it, but the one indicated is that which is most generally cultivated in India: the leaf is much smaller than the common Ame- rican species, and is ovate instead of lanceolate; one of the varieties is often cultivated in this country as a garden plant. Colour dark brown. Persian or Shiraz.—This highly valued sort, occasion- ally received from Turkey, is produced by WV. Persica ; the 292 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. leaves are long and lanceolate. ‘The Shiraz tobacco is very celebrated ; it is in yellow tough leaves, often much broken. Latakia.—This, which we also receive from Turkey, comes from the Turkish province of Latakia, formerly the ancient Laodicea; it is produced by another variety of N. rustica. Latakia tobacco consists of the leaves together with the panicles of flowers and buds, with about four inches of the pedicels attached ; the leaves and flowers appear to be laid in layers one upon the other to a considerable thickness and then pressed together, until they form com- pact ands, about the size of a man’s head. ‘The colouris a dark brown. Chinese.—The author has met with two kinds of tobacco from China: one in small yellow ovate leaves of a bright yellow colour, not tied in hands, and not more than four inches in length; the other in hands consisting of dark brown lanceolate leaves, eighteen inches long and very smooth. Neither are of common occurrence in this country; the former is probably a variety of V. rustica ; the latter is un- doubtedly WV. Chimensis, a perennial tobacco of large growth. European Tosaccos :— Dutch and German are furnished by two or three species, especially NV. Zabacum and N. rustica. TOBACCO. 293 Though cultivated in Africa, the tobacco of that country has taken no important position in commerce. Nothwithstanding a high rate of duty payable upon im- portation, the consumption of tobacco in this country is immense. In 1850 the imports were 42,441,520 Ibs.; of this a very large portion was re-exported. The following sta- tistics of its consumption are taken from a paper ‘ On the history and consumption of Tobacco,’ by John Crawford, Esq., read before the Statistical Society, November 15th, 1852, reported in the ‘Literary Gazette’ of January lst, 1853. The table “exhibits the rapid increase im its con- sumption during the last thirty years. Duty Consump- Years. |Consumption. per lb. Revenue. | Population. tion per ead. lbs. £. OZ. 1821 15,598,152 4s, 3,122,383 | 21,282,960 Nae al 1831 19,532,841 3s. 2,964,592 | 24,410,439 12°80 1841 22,309,360 38. 3,580,163 | 27,019,672 13°31 1851 28,062,978 38. 4,485,768 | 27,452,262 16°86 —_—_ “The total annual production of tobacco is estimated at 2,000,000 of tons, and would require half the British ton- nage which ‘enters inwards’ or ‘clears outwards’ annually, to transport the same. The value, at 2d. per pound, would amount to £37,000,000 sterling.” 294 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Cork (called commercially Corkwood).—The outer bark of the Cork Oak (Quercus Suber, Nat. Ord. Corylacee). This very useful substance is formed by the tree between the outermost and innermost layers of its bark ; it consists of a peculiar cellular mass, the individual cells of which are distended with a curious grumous secretion, which hardens and dries, and forms the substance of the Cork. When the Cork Oak is nine or ten years old, the outer bark splits and the second layer grows, and increases very much in bulk by the constant secretion of the corky matter: this would fall off naturally im nine or ten years, but is usually removed when six or seven years old. The removal is effected by cutting a slit through the bark from the top of the trunk to the bottom, and a transverse one at each end; the cork will then easily peel off; it is afterwards removed, in large curled-up pieces, to properly prepared pits; here the sheets are piled up one upon another, and heavy weights are placed to flatten them down; water is then let into the pit, and the cork left to soak for a time, it is then taken out and dried, and retains its flatness. Its use in making corks for bottles is very generally known; it is also used fora variety of economic purposes, amongst which cork soles for shoes, making life-buoys, etc. The imports amount to 2520 tons, an enormous quantity of so light a material. AMADOU. 295 Rick Paper.—Another cellular substance, though very different from the last. This beautiful material has given rise to much discussion; the common opinion was that, as its name implied, it was made of rice; the slightest micro- scopic examination however proved that it was a fine cellu- lar tissue. It has been attributed to. many plants, but it is now, through the indefatigable perseverance of the officers of the Kew Gardens, decided to be the produce of Aralia papyrifera (Nat. Ord. Araliacee), called in China, Taccada. The pith, which is about an inch and a half in diameter, is freed from the external parts of the stem, and then pared in the same way the ancients employed in preparing their paper from the pithy stem of the papyrus rush (Papyrus antiquorum). After the mass has been carefully pared to the centre, it is flattened out and pressed by heavy weights placed uponit; when thoroughly dried under pressure, it retains its perfect flatness. Its use is chiefly for water- colour paintings of flowers, fruit, and insects, which have an exquisite effect upon rice-paper. It is also employed for a few other ornamental purposes. Amapou, German Tinper.—This cellular substance con- sists of slices cut from the large parasitic fungus Boletus igniarius (Nat. Ord. Hungi): it grows in large masses upon 296 FOPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. the oak. When first obtained, it is rather hard, but by beating it with mallets it becomes soft, feelmg very much like chamois-leather. It is used as tinder, for which it is admirably adapted, and also in surgery as a styptic. One or two other fungi are used for the same purposes, under the name of Amadou. Polyporus fomentarius is the true Amadou: it is used in India, and also by the Laplanders, who place great value upon il as a styptic. VEGETABLE Ivory.—This remarkable substance, which so closely resembles a product of the animal kingdom, is the hardened albumen of the nuts of a species of Palm, Phyte- lephas macrocarpa. (Plate X. fig. 48. Fig. 49 represents the nut about half the natural size, with the outer shell partly broken; and figure 50 is a section of the same show- ing the relative proportion of the ivory and the position of a small cavity which always exists in the centre.) These nuts in commerce usually go by the name of Corosso nuts. How this name originated is a mystery, as the Indians call the palm by the names Puddipunta and Homero ; the native Spaniards call it Palma del Marsil and Marsil vegetal. The nuts are enclosed in large capsules, about twenty inches in circumference, containmg many of the seeds or nuts. Owing to the extreme shortness of the caudea, or stalk, of i COQUILLA NUTS. 297 this fine palm, the large capsules lie on the ground, as seen in the Plate, whilst the majestic tuft’ of pinnated leaves, twenty feet in height, rises like a gigantic plume of feathers. The capsules are said to resemble negroes’ heads, and are called by the natives, Cabeza de negro. The Vegetable Ivory Palm is a native of the low valleys of the Peruvian Andes. We are indebted to Sir’ William Hooker for our knowledge of this fine palm, and for proving it to be the . produce of the Corosso nuts; a very interesting article will be found upon this subject in the lst volume of ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany,’ 1849. They are used extensively by the turners in making small trinkets to imitate ivory. About 80,000 of the nuts were imported in 1852. Coquitta Nuts.—The seeds of another Palm, Attalea Junifera (Plate VIII. fig. 40), previously alluded to in speaking of Piassava. In Plate X., fig. 51 is a Coquilla nut, and fig. 52 a parasol handle turned out of one of these nuts. The seed of the A¢talea was known long before the palm which produces it, and as the seed clearly indicated a close affinity to the Cocoa-nut, it was called by Gertner, Cocos lapidea, and by Targioni Tozzetti, Lithocarpus cocci- formis. Coquilla nuts are often three inches in length: they have a small cavity in the centre, in which the seed is found ; 298 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. the shell is thick and extremely hard and brittle, taking a very fine polish; they are used chiefly in the manner indi- cated by fig. 52, and for making the small knob-handles of cabinet drawers. About 300,000 nuts were imported in 1852. Areca Nuts.—The fruit of another palm. They are inclining slightly to pear-shape, about the size of a large cherry, very hard, and externally not much unlike some of the inferior nutmegs; the only use to which they are ap- plied in this country, is for making tooth-powder, for which purpose they are first converted into charcoal and then powdered; only a very small number is imported. They are the seed of Areca Catechu (Palmacee), and constitute the celebrated Betel Nuts of India. Juntper Berrres.—The fruit of the common Juniper (Juniperus communis, Nat. Ord. Conifere). (Plate XIX. fig. 101.) These berries are imported in considerable quanti- ties from the North of Germany, Holland, and other places, for flavouring the gin of this country. More than 200 tons per annum are usually imported. Tonauin, Tonea, or Tonca Bran.—The seeds of Dip- teryx odorata (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae). The pods of this plant only produce one seed in each: this seed or bean is PATCHOULI. 299 an inch in length, shaped somewhat like a thin almond, covered with a shining black skin, and of an agreeable and powerful odour, resembling newly-made hay; the odorife- rous principle resides in a substance called cowrmarine. It is a native of Guiana, and is used almost only for scenting snuff; a few hundredweights are imported annually. Parcnuoutt or PucHa-Pat.—A herb named Pogostemon Patchouli (Nat. Ord. Labiate). (Plate XVI. fig. 84.) The dried tops with leaves and flowers are imported in bundles about one foot in length ; they yield, by distillation, an essen- tial oil, in which form the perfume exists, and, by digestion in weak alcohol, a tincture called Essence of Patchouli or Patchouly. This peculiarly-scented vegetable product is only used in perfumery, but the odour it yields, though delightful to many, is to others very offensive. It is im- ported from India, in chests and half-chests, the former weighing 110 lbs. each. In the description of the Pat- chouli plant in ‘ Hooker’s Journal of Botany,’ a writer in the ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle’ is quoted, who states that the cha- racteristic smell of Chinese Indian Ink is owing to an ad- mixture of patchouli in its manufacture. This is however manifestly erroneous: the Sepia, from which the Indian ink is manufactured, has naturally a strong musky odour, so 300 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. much so, that those feeces of the whale which constitute the much-admired and valuable perfume called ambergris are believed to originate solely from the animal feeding upon the Sepia, the comminuted bones of which are constantly found in ambergris. Orrice or Ints Root.—The root of the Florentine Iris (Iris Florentina, Nat. Ord. Iridacee). (Plate XVI. fig. 83.) This vegetable production, which is only used in perfu- mery, is the rhizome or underground stem of the above spe- cies of Iris, and probably also of J. padiida. It comes from Italy, in flattened white pieces of very irregular shape, and spotted with brownish spots; these are the poits from which the fibrous roots have been removed. Orrice root possesses a beautiful violet odour, and is used principally in the perfumed preparation of wheat-starch called Volet- powder. Above five tous are annually imported. Catamus Roor is the rhizome of the Sweet Flag, Acorus aromaticus (Nat. Ord. Acoracea). This plant has a most extensive geographical range, being found in Kurope, Asia, Africa, and North America. The bulk of that which furnishes the supply of our markets is from the banks of the Norfolk rivers, where it is indige- nous and very plentiful; it is however occasionally im- GUM BENZOIN. 301 ported from Hamburg and from the Italian ports. The foreign article usually has the rind pared off. Calamus root, or Calamus aromaticus as it is usually called, is in flat- tened pieces, about three-quarters of an inch broad and five or six inches in length, of a yellowish-brown colour; this rhizome is also marked with scars from which the leaves have been removed, and by spots, below where the roots existed. Its essential oil is used in perfuming snuffs. The root is much used in the adulteration of ale, by the brewers and publicans; it is also used by perfumers. Gum Benzorn or Bensamin. (Plate XVIII. fig. 92.)— A gum-resin used chiefly in perfumery. It is produced by the Benjamin-tree, Styrax Benzoin (Nat. Ord. Styracea), a very large tree, indigenous to Sumatra, Borneo, Siam, and Java. 7 The gum exudes from incisions purposely made in the stems, and is of different qualities according to the age of the trees. We receive it either in masses or tears: the masses are fragments of the solid block into which the Benzoin is run in the chests, and is a mixture of red and white patches, having a resemblance to coarse red granite; the tears are usually nearly white, and of a very fine quality. It forms an ingredient in the incense used for burning, and in some 302 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. few medicinal preparations. About 10 tons were imported in 1853, from the Hast Indies. Gum Sryrax or Storax.—Another odoriferous gum- resin, the produce of Styraw officinale (Nat. Ord. Styracea). There are several varieties of this gum, all the produce of Turkey m Asia, where the gum exudes naturally through punctures made in the bark by insects; the bark is also cut for the purpose. It is either liquid or solid; the former is thicker than treacle, of a greyish colour and agreeable vanilla odour ; the solid is in large cakes of a reddish-brown colour. It is very easily broken, and consists of a coarse sawdust-like powder of reddish-brown colour. It contains about four-fifths of sawdust, and it appears most probable it is nothing more than the liquid storax mixed with sufficient sawdust to divide it thoroughly and so dry it, after which the saturated sawdust is pressed into cakes. It is seldom used except by perfumers, and is but very rarely imported. Acra-AGra, Cryton Moss. Plocaria candida or Fucus amylaceus. The former name has been lately adopted. (Nat. Ord. Alga.) This seaweed is occasionally imported in considerable quantities for the purpose of making a jelly for dressing silks. Jt is in the form of thin, very much branched pieces; the uP st IRISH MOSS. 303 branches are roundish and very rough, being covered with small pointed tubercles; it is of a yellowish colour and so gelatinous as to be semi-transparent; it tastes strongly, when imported, of sea-salt, and has the usual odour of sea- weeds. It forms a considerable article of food in India, and is said to furnish the material for the edible birds’-nests of China. When well washed and then soaked in pure water, it swells considerably and becomes transparent; in this state it is boiled in syrup and forms a delicious preserve, which is sometimes imported in jars, similar to those which contain preserved ginger. CaRRAGEEN, or IrisH Moss. Chondrus crispus. (Nat. Ord. A/gz.) This is another seaweed which yields an abundance of gelatine, and is used in the manufactories for dressing silks, etc.; it is also extensively used in feeding cattle, and to make a light nutritive jelly for invalids. It is in broadish fronds, resembling pieces of yellow parchment much crisped or curled at the edges. It contains 79 per cent. of vegetable jelly. It is occasionally imported from Northern Europe, but enormous quantities are furnished from the Irish coasts. Trazets.—The dried heads of the Fullers’ Teazel, Dzp- sacus fullonum (Nat. Ord. Dipsacee). 304 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. The fullers’ teazel produces a large conical composite flower-head, which is persistent after the flowers have died ; it is covered with hard, stiff, sharp-pointed bracts, the points of which are bent in the form of a hook; these cones are about two and a half inches in length, and one inch and a half in diameter at the base; they are used for raising the nap on woollen cloth, for which purpose they are so admi- rably adapted, that no invention has yet been found to supersede them entirely. When used, they are cut into halves or quarters, and a great number are fixed in a frame with the hooked bracts outwards, so that a large surface of these minute claws is presented; the fraine is then made to move over the surface of the cloth until the little sharp hooks of the teazels have scratched up the required nap; large quantities are imported from Hamburg and Holland, besides which the teazel is extensively Babs - im many parts of England. Dutcu Rusues. LHyuisetum hyemale. (Nat. Ord. Hqui- setacea.) This curious vegetable production is found abundantly in the low boggy grounds of Holland, whence it is occa- sionally exported; it is also found in similar localities in England. Its stem, which is about a foot in height, is covered a CANES. 305 with a skin so full of silica, that it is occasionally used to polish furniture, woods, and metals. Formerly it was of great importance for that purpose, but the invention of sand and emery papers has almost superseded this natural file. Canres.—Under this general designation the stems of several different plants are imported for various purposes, chiefly as walking-sticks. The walking-canes are princi- pally— The Malacca Cane (Calamus Zalacca, Nat. Ord. Palma- cee), which are highly prized; they are of all thicknesses up to an inch in diameter, jointed like the common rattan, but with the joints so far apart that a good walking-cane can be made of a single internode ; these canes are of a rich reddish-brown colour, and as shining as if varnished. The brown tint is communicated by a process of smoking. They are imported from China and the Hast Indies. Partridge Canes are the stems of some small Palm, with the exterior removed, and the hard wood polished; they resemble sticks of porcupine-wood, and are chiefly used as handles for umbrellas, etc. Penang Lawyers are also the stems of a species of Palm, but which one is a matter of uncertainty; they are said to be produced by a species of Calamus. x 306 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Several of the walking-canes are produced by plants be- longing to the Natural Order Graminacee, or the Grasses : thus the Bamboo, which is of almost universal application, though very seldom used for the purpose above indicated, is a species of grass, Bambusa arundinacea, often fifty or sixty feet in height ; and there are several resembling it, only differig in size, which are only used as walking-canes ; for instance, those called Whangees, White and Black Bam- boos, Fluted Bamboos, Jambees, etc.: we are however quite ignorant of the species which produce them. Under the name of Reed Cane, the culm or stem of a grass is largely imported from New Orleans, for the pur- pose of making weavers’ shuttles, etc.; they are probably from Arundinaria Schomburgkit, and are often forty feet in length. The Bamboo is of infinite use to the inhabitants of the East Indies, and especially China, who adapt it to an in- finity of purposes ; they even make ornamental clothing by stringing together very small lengths of the small petioles of the beautiful narrow lanceolate leaves; they also build their huts and make every article of their furniture of this useful cane, which thrives in the East with extraordinary luxuriance. 307 DIVISION IV. MATERIA MEDICA. CHAPTER XIII. MISCELLANEOUS MEDICINAL PRODUCTS. iy a work professing to be a popular history of the econo- mic productions of the vegetable kingdom, it would be entirely out of place to enter into a description of all those vegetable materials which constitute the remedial agents used in pharmacy. Indeed they are so numerous that the present volume would prove insufficient for the slightest sketch of their qualities and characters. There are a few however which are of such familiar use, that a selection of these, and such others as are possessed of some interest, will perhaps be acceptable to the reader. es ee 308 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Several Gums were omitted from the chapter on those products, because their use was solely medicinal; they will now therefore be mentioned. Gum Asar@ripa.—A gum-resin which exudes from in- cisions made in the root of Perula Asafetida (Nat. Ord. Umbellifere). Much learned discussion has taken place upon the pro- bability of this plant being in use amongst the ancients under the name of daser, which it is supposed has been changed to asa, or, as it is called by Avicenna, assa. This Ferwla is a native of Persia; it has very large tap- roots, similar to but much larger than the common parsnep. In order to obtain the gum-resin the cultivators remove the earth from the upper part of the root, and then cutting off the crown, from this excision the gum-resin. oozes as a milky juice, which however rapidly changes colour and hardens upon exposure to the air; it is scraped off from time to time; and when fully hardened in lumps, it has a red colour and disagreeable smell, resembling garlic. About . 83000 lbs. were imported in 1852. Usually it isin lumps, or run in one mass into a case; sometimes it is in tears, which are yellowish-white, and varying in size from a pea to a walnut. GUM GALBANUM. 309 Gum SacaPpeNuM—is another gum-resin, obtained in a similar manner from a species of Feruda, which has not yet been correctly determined. It occurs both im tears and in mass; the former is in small brownish-yellow tears adher- ing together so as to form masses. The mass sagapenum is soft and tough, and of a dark yellowish-brown colour. This gum has a slight smell of onions. The quantity im- ported is small. Gum GaLBanum.—A gum-resin which exudes from in- cisions made in the stalk of Galdanum officinale. (Nat. Ord. Umbellifere.) The chief interest attached to this gum arises from its rarity, the uncertainty of its native locality, and its great antiquity, as an esteemed vegetable product. Thus it is mentioned by Moses in Exodus xxx. 34: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum ; these sweet spices with pure frank- incense: of each there shall be a like weight.” It is sup- posed, without any certainty, to be a native of Syria, of Persia, and of Arabia. It is either in brownish-yellow, semi- transparent tears, round, and about the size of peas, or else it is in agglutinated masses consisting of the tears probably of an inferior quality, and usually of a darker colour, less 310 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. translucent, and much mixed with seeds, stalks, and other foreign substances. It has a fragrant balsamic smell, but is not very agreeable ; its use is principally as a constituent of plaisters. ) : Gum Opopanax.—A resinous exudation obtained fro incisions in the roots of Opopanax :Chironium (Nat. Ord. Umbellifere). tis a reddish-yellow gum, which occasion- ally, but rarely, comes from Italy, Sicily, and Greece ; it was known to the ancients, who employed it in pharmacy. Gum Ammoniacum.—The gum-resin of another Umbel- liferous plant—Dorema ammoniacum. This gum is the produce of Persia; it oozes forth from the punctures made in the plant by a species of beetle which infests it. Sometimes it is in yellowish-white tears, but more generally in masses formed by the agglutination of these tears; the smell is disagreeable. Though produced in Persia, we receive our supply, which is considerable, en- tirely from India. Gum Scammony.—A gum-resin procured by making an incision in the upper part of the large perennial roots of the Convolvulus Scammonia (Nat. Ord. Convolvulacce), for which purpose the earth is removed from the top of the root. (Plate XVII. fig. 90.) GUM MYRRH. 312 We usually receive Scammony from Smyrna, in the form of small compact cakes about an inch thick and three or four inches in diameter. It is of a dark greenish-black colour, with a dull surface and a remarkable cheesy smell. But scam- mony, owing to the adulterations practised upon it by those who collect it, is so varied in appearance that a very long description of all the varieties would be necessary to perfect its history. We receive between 2000 and 3000 lbs. per annum. Gum Event, or ELEM, is a peculiar resin, the history of which is involved in obscurity. The Dutch furnish the whole supply of this resin, which is consequently thought to be the product of one of their colomies, but both its origin and the locality whence it is brought are, with the characteristic jealousy of that people, kept entirely secret. It is in masses, having a sweet balsamic smell, and a greenish and yellowish-white colour. A few hundredweights only are imported. Gum Myrru.—tThis gum-resin exudes naturally from the stem of Balsamodendron Myrrha (Nat. Ord. Amyridacee), a small shrub growing on the coast of Abyssinia, and called Kerobeta by the inhabitants. Myrrh is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, even ee POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. as early as Genesis xxxvil. 25, where we find the Ishmaelites, _ to whom Joseph was sold by his brethren, were merchants dealing in “myrrh, balm, and spicery;’” its name in all probability is derived from the Hebrew word Mur, which signifies di¢¢er,—a name very expressive of its bitter taste. It has always been highly esteemed, on account of its sweet balsamic odour and presumed medicinal virtues. Two kinds are imported, one from the Hast Indies, the other from Turkey; the latter is the better variety. Myrrh is in small masses about the size of a walnut, sometimes larger, very irregular in shape, and of a reddish-brown colour (darker in the Hast Indian variety), slightly translucent, and ap- pearing to be covered with yellowish-brown dust. About 15 or 16 tons are annually imported, the greater portion from the Hast Indies. ) Manna.—A concrete juice which exudes from the branches of the European Flowering Ash, Ornus Europea (Nat. Ord. Oleaceez). (Plate XVIII. fig. 93.) It is usually produced by making incisions in the stem and branches of the tree ; it is a peculiar kind of sugar, called Mannite ; when it first oozes from the longitudinal incisions it is a yellowish-white liquid, which concretes on the bark, and is removed in long strips, called flakes; there are other varieties, but Flake LIQUORICE ROOT. $138 ‘Manna is the best. All we receive comes from Sicily in boxes, and amounts to about 11,000 lbs. per annum. Ators.—The juice of the leaves of various species of Aloe, principally 4. vulgaris, A. Socotorina, and A. spicata. (Nat. Ord. Liliacez.) The juice of the aloe-leaves is either expressed or drained out, after which it is boiled until it begins to thicken, when it is poured into gourds or calabashes, and other convenient packages, and hardens into a compact black substance, having an aromatic smell, but an intensely bitter taste. There are several kinds distinguished in commerce, as— Socotorine Aloes (the best) produced by A. Socotorina. Barbadoes Aloes (fine quality) : A. vulgaris. - Cape Aloes (very inferior) 3 A. spicata. Hepatic Aloes (inferior) iM A. Indica ? Mocha Aloes (the worst) % A. Indica. Indian Aloes (quality variable) 2 A. Indica. About 120 to 130 tons of Aloes are annually imported. Liquorice Roor.—The large tap-roots of the Common Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra: Nat. Ord. Leguminose). (Plate XVII. fig. 91). This well-known vegetable product was equally familiar to the ancients, who also used it medicinally. The root is 314 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. rarely imported, a considerable quantity being grown for medicinal purposes in various parts of the kingdom. We however receive from Italy very large quantities of the extract of the root, either made into short sticks, and called Spanish Liquorice, or Liquorice Juice; or else in the form of an extract run into boxes of about two hundredweights | each; the latter article is the purest. 560 tons were im- ported in 1850. Much of this large quantity is used by the brewers in the manufacture of porter. Campuor.—A peculiar vegetable principle contained in many plants, but the Camphor of commerce is derived from Camphora oficinarum (Nat. Ord. Lauracee). (Plate XVI. fig. 85.) Camphor exists chiefly in the wood of the tree, and being volatile, is easily distilled from it by means of heat, and is condensed in an earthen receiver. ‘The crude or unrefined camphor of commerce is obtained from China and Batavia ; it is in the form of a crystalline powder, of a dirty white colour, and resembling some of the white varieties of un- refined sugar; it is refined by re-distillation. The imports exceed 200 tons annually. Nux Vomica.—The seeds of Strychnos Nux-Vomica (Nat. Ord. Apocynacea). (Plate XVI. fig. 86.) RHUBARB. 315 These poison nuts contain the peculiar vegetable principle called Strychnine, which is remarkable for its powerful effect on the nervous system of animals, and for its intense bit- terness ; it 1s in consequence of this latter quality it has lately been so much an object of interest, owing to state- ments having been made that it was used to give a flavour to the common beverage called ditter ale. This has been contradicted by those most interested, nevertheless the most suspicious point has not been cleared up. In 1840 only 550 pounds of Nux Vomica were imported, whereas in 1852 nearly as many ¢ous reached the English markets. The seeds are about the size of a shilling, twice as thick, and have a silky appearance; they are of less thickness in the middle than at their edges, and have a small point or umbilicus 11 the centre of the concave side, one surface being more concave than the other. Their colour is a kind of fawn or light drab. Nux Vomica is imported from Co- romandel, Ceylon, etc.; it is much used as a poison for rats and mice. Ruvuspars.—The dried roots of some species of Rheum. (Nat. Ord. Polygonacee.) No drug in the whole Materia Medica has given rise to more discussion as to its origin than the medicinal Rhubarb. 316 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. There are two distinct varieties in ordinary commerce, known as Kast Indian and Turkey, but there are others in the market ; properly the Hast Indian should be called Hi- malayan, and the Turkey Russian; there are besides the Dutch trimmed, Chinese, English, and French. The species of Rheum supposed to yield them are R. wndulutum, R. palmatum, R. compactum,and hk. Rhaponticum. About 140 tons is the annual supply. ‘The roots are cut into pieces of various size and shape, but usually of the bulk of an orange ; the outer bark is peeled off, and the lumps are apparently trimmed with a file; very often they are perforated with large holes, which have been made for the purpose of stringing them up to dry. Jatap.—The dried tubers of Hxogonium Purga (Nat. Ord. Convolvulacee). (Plate XVII. fig. 89.) This valuable medicine has been known in Europe ever since 17383, when it was introduced from Mexico, its native place, by Dr. HLouston ; it derives its name from a place named Xalapa, where it is most abundant. Until lately it was sup- posed to be derived from a species of Convolvulus, which, under the name of C. Jadapa, has long been cultivated in the botanic gardens of Kurope as the true Jalap plant ; it is now proved to be an Hvogonium, a genus distinguished from SENNA LEAVES. SIF Ipomea and Convolvulus chiefly by the stamens being pro- truded owt of the tube of the corolla. It is a beautiful climbing convolvulus-like plant, with delicate pink flowers ; its stem is perennial, but very thin, and forms in the ground a tuber of an oval figure thin at each extremity, where the stem and roots are given off; it reaches the size of a small turnip, but the largest tubers are rarely selected; they be- come much smaller by drying; externally the tubers are of a dark umber-brown colour and much wrinkled. The im- ports are nearly 150 tons per annum. A spurious kind of jalap is often found in the markets under the name of Male-jalap, or He-jalap; it consists evidently of pieces of a much larger tuber, much coarser, but in general appear- ance not unlike the true species; it is produced by Jpomea Orizabensis (Convolvulacea). Senna Leaves.—Dried leaves of several species of Cassia (Nat. Ord. Leguminose). There are several qualities of Senna in commerce, and it is thought they are all derived from different species. The principal commercial kinds are Aleppo, Alexandrian, and Hast Indian or Tinnevelly Senna. They are supposed to be yielded by the following species :—Aleppo, by Cassia obovata, a per- ennial herbaceous plant, a native of Northern Africa, but 318 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. now cultivated in southern Europe and the West Indies ;— — Alexandrian, by several species mixed together, as C. obo- vata, C. acutifolia, C. Aithiopica, and almost invariably with the leaves of a plant belonging to the Natural Order Ase/e- piadacea, called Cynanchum Argel ;—and Tinnevelly, by C. elongata, an annual species, which, being carefully cultivated and kept quite free from mixture of other species, is the most highly prized. The same species yield several other varieties, produced in other localities. The Senna Cassias all produce yellow flowers, which, though belonging to the Leguminous Order, have no general resemblance to pea- shaped flowers; the reader must therefore refer to Plate XVII. fig. 87, and will derive a better idea from Mr. Fitch’s beautiful drawing than from the most elaborate de- scription. The quantity of senna imported from all parts, in 1852, was about 257 tons. The long round black pods, imported under the name of Cassia-fistula, are seed-pods of an allied species, Catharto- carpus Fistula (Nat. Ord. Leguminose), a tree found in China and the Kast Indies. | PervuviaN Bark, Jesurts’ Barxk.—The dried bark of various species of the genus Cimchona (Nat. Ord. Cincho- nacee). (Plate XVII. fig. 88.) . 87. Senna shrub. 88. Peruvian Bark Tree. 89. Jalap Plant. 90. Scammony Plant.’91. Liquorice Plant. PERUVIAN BARK. 319 The extreme value of the Peruvian Cinchona barks in pharmacy has caused their history to be discussed more than that of any other remedial agent; the discussion re- specting Peruvian Bark has moreover been greatly increased by the mystery which hangs over its early history. Whe- ther it was known to the Indians prior to the discovery of America, or first used by Europeans afterwards, is not clearly proved. One tradition says it was discovered by an Indian, who was dying from fever on the bank of a river; in the agony of thirst he crawled to the water with a piece of bark which he had stripped off the tree against which he had been leaning, and used it as a scoop to raise the water to dis lips; the bitter infusion thereby made, so wonderfully revived him that he recovered, and made known the value of Cinchona bark. The absurdity of this tale is apparent to all who are acquainted with the effects of the bark. Geoffroy says it was known to the Indians, but was by them kept a secret, until one of them, in a fit of grati- tude for some benefit received, imparted it to the Governor of Loxa: this statement also is from many circumstances incredible. It received the name of Cinchona from the Countess of Cinchon, who in 1638 was wife of the Vice- roy of Peru; and hence also the powdered bark received 320 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. the name of Pulvis Comitisse, or Countess’s Powder ; its — value was made known to the natives of Europe chiefly by the agency of the Jesuits, whence it also received the name of Jesuits’ Bark. The value of the Cinchona barks is now known to de- pend entirely upon the presence of two peculiar chemical principles, called Quznine and Cinchonine, which are ex- tremely effective in febrile diseases, especially those which are intermittent. The Cinchonas are trees of moderate size, often not more than twenty feet, and rarely exceeding twice that height ; they bear a profusion of small white or roseate tubular flowers, and have handsome shining laneeolate leaves placed oppositely on short petioles. The species which are valuable for their bark are numerous, the following are however the principal ones :— C. Condaminea, yielding Crown or Loxa Bark. C. micrantha, J Huanuco, Grey, or Silver Bark. C. ovata, z Ash Cinchona. C. purpurea, 5 Rusty or Huamalies Bark. C. (species P) iz Calisaya, or Royal Yellow Bark. C. (species ?) 7 Red Bark. These barks are usually in the form of quills, some sorts a. er CASTOR OIL. S48 b not thicker than the little-finger, others nearly as thick as a man’s wrist; other sorts are in flattish pieces, and all are of various lengths, seldom exceeding two feet. They are usually imported in packages called serons, made of dried cow-hides. The quantity imported annually is from 80 to 90 tons; but much difficulty exists in ascertaining the exact amount, as in the Board of Trade returns it is, strange to say, mixed up with tanners’ barks. Castor O1n.—A fixed oil obtained by expression from the seeds (Plate XVI. fig. 82) of Ricinus communis, or Palma Christi (Nat. Ord. Huphorhiacee). This oil is produced in great abundance both in India, its native country, and in America and the West Indies. Its utility as a medicine has been known from the most remote ages. The seeds have been found with Hgyptian mummies in sarcophagi. ‘The Greeks called it Croton, a name now applied to a closely allied genus; the Romans, remarking the striking resemblance in the seeds to the vile insects called ¢icks, which infest living animals, especially the dog and sheep, called it Azcenus, their name for the Zick. The Palma Christi is a very large herbaceous plant with handsome palmate leaves when grown in temperate cli- mates, but it attains a larger size and acquires a woody stem ay, 322 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. of considerable bulk in the tropics; and although with us an annual, bearing seed and dying within a year, yet in India it is perennial. Castor Oil is very largely imported ; nearly 500 tons is now the annual supply. CascaRILLA Bark is the bark of a tree, Croton Hleutheria, of the same Natural Order as the last (Huphorbiacea). It is produced in the Bahama Islands; it is m small quills and fragments of quills, rarely more than two or three inches in length, and of an ash-grey colour. Besides its medicinal properties, which are tonic, it is used in fumiga- tions, giving off a remarkably sweet musky odour in burn- ing. It is often called Sweet-wood Bark. About 10 or 12 tons are imported annually. CarpamMoms.—The ripe capsules or fruit of Hlettaria Cardamomum. (Nat. Ord. Zingiberacee.) (Plate XVI. fig. 81.)—Cardamoms were described in the chapter on Spices; their chief use however is medicinal, as carmina- tive and aromatic. The sorts usually employed in medicine are the Malabar Cardamoms, of which three varieties occur, distinguishable chiefly by their size: they are termed shorts, short-longs, and long-longs: the lucidity of these commercial names will doubtless please those who quarrel with scientific phraseology. OPIUM. 323 Oprum.—The juice which flows from incisions made in the unripe capsules of the Opium Poppy, Papaver somni- Serum (Nat. Ord. Papaveracee), collected, dried, and formed Into a mass. The opium of commerce consists principally of two kinds, © Kast Indian and Turkish; the latter is esteemed most highly. In India the Poppy is largely cultivated for the production of opium. Dr. Joseph Hooker describes the poppy-fields as resembling green lakes studded with white water-lilies. His description of the opium culture in India is the best account we. have of the process; he says— “The East India Company grants licenses for the culti- vation of the poppy, and contracts for all the produce at certain rates, varying according to its quality. “The poppy flowers in the end of January and the beginning of February, and the capsules are sliced in February and March with a little instrument like a saw, made of three serrated plates tied together; from the in- cisions made by this instrument the opium oozes out as a milky juice, which as it dries becomes a soft brown sticky paste ; each morning this paste is scraped off by means of small shells, and collected into jars, the contents of which are afterwards made into balls of about half a pound weight ; O24 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. these are often coated with the seeds of some species of Rheum (or rhubarb plant) ; the balls are packed into chests, and exported to other countries.” The employment of opium as a narcotic, especially in the preparation of laudanum, is well known, and very large quantities are brought to this country : in 1852, 51 tons were imported; this will be considered an enormous quantity, when the mode by which it is produced and collected is con- sidered. To attempt to proceed further with the account of the productions used in medicine would necessitate the intro- duction to this chapter of matters interesting only to the pharmaceutist ; those already mentioned constitute all the Materia Medica likely to afford interest to the general reader. 325 DIVISION IV. CONSTRUCTIVE MATERIALS. — CHAPTER XIV. BUILDING AND FURNITURE WOODS. ‘* And forth they pass, with pleasure forward led, Joying to hear the birds’ sweet harmony, Which therein shrouded from the tempest dread, Seem’d in their song to scorn the cruel sky. Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing Pine, the Cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop Elm, the Poplar never dry, The builder Oak, sole king of forests all, The Aspen good for staves, the Cypress funeral. “The Laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the Fir that weepeth still, The Willow worn of forlorn paramours, The Yew obedient to the bender’s will, The Birch for shafts, the Sallow for the mill, 326 FOPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. The Myrrh sweet bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike Beech, the Ash for nothing ill, The fruitful Olive, and the Plantain round, The carver Holm, the Maple seldom inward sound.” In attempting to give the history of woods used in the construction of buildings, ships, and furniture, many diff- culties arise, owing to the profound ignorance which pre- vails amongst all classes respecting the origin of the greater number of the woods of commerce. ‘The varieties brought to this country are so numerous that their names alone - would form an extensive catalogue; but even in that form we have no really reliable work of reference except the Illus- trated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition, in which we find the admirably classified lists of Mr. W. W. Saunders and Messrs. Fauntleroy and Sons; the former is the most valu- able ever yet formed. Besides these we have a small but very useful treatise by Mr. Charles Holtzapffel, with botani- cal notes by Dr. Royle; these are the only practical papers we can refer to upon a subject of such vast importance, and the limits of a single chapter will only admit of a small selection being made. ‘Those selected are arranged accord- ing to country in five divisions, European, Asiatic, African, American, and Australian, and will comprise those only EUROPEAN WOODS. ont which are imported from foreign countries, and of which the name of the producing tree is known. KurRoPEAN Woops. Danrzic Daa, Spruce Fir, and Spruce.—The wood of Abies excelsa (Nat. Ord. Conifere). Danrzic Frr, Riea Fir, and Prusstan Dieat.—The wood of Pinus sylvestris. These Coniferous plants furnish very much of the com- mon timber used in the construction of houses, and the interior portions and decks of vessels; also in the inferior - articles of household furniture. The imports are enormous, employing annually more than a hundred large vessels. Norway Bircuw. Betula alba. (Nat. Ord. Betulacee.) —This is an inferior timber, used in common articles of furniture and in ship-building. Oax.—Of this valuable timber several different species are imported, and used chiefly for ship-building. They are Baltic Oak, Quercus pedunculata (Nat. Ord. Corylacee) ; Kast Country Oak, Q. pedunculata ; Adriatic Oak, Q. Cerris ; besides one or two doubtful ones. Box-woop. Buxus Balearica. (Nat. Ord. Huphorbia- cee.) —Large quantities of this wood, amounting to 3000 328 ; POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. or 4000 tons annually, are imported from Smyrna, Con- ; stantinople, and the Greek Islands; it is used in making blocks for wood-engravings, rollers for calico-printing, various toys, and articles of turnery. It is imported in | pieces about four feet in length, and rarely exceeding ten — inches in diameter, perfectly round, and of a yellowish- white colour; it is a very hard close-grained wood, and is admirably adapted for the engraver and turner. Orance. Citrus Aurantium (Nat. Ord. Aurantiacee).— A yellowish-white wood, with fine close grain, used for in- ‘laying and turnery. Watnout. Juglans regia (Nat. Ord. JSuglandacee).—A hard handsome wood, of a dark colour, beautifully feathered, the colours being a sort of umber and yellow. It is largely imported from Russia and Germany, and from North America, for making ornamental furniture. OuivE-woop. Olea Europea (Nat. Ord. Oleacee).—A fine close-grained wood, usually yellowish, but often beauti- fully feathered; it is much used in small ornamental work for furniture. | Asiatic Woops. Movtmetn Teak, Creyton Trax, Travancore TEAK, and Hast Inp1an Teak, probably all from Zectona grandis ASIATIC WOODS. 329 (Nat. Ord. Verbenacea).—This timber, probably the most durable known, is very hard, and abounds in particles of silex, which of course renders it very heavy. ‘This is an objection to its use in ship-building, for which purpose it would otherwise be the most valuable timber-tree known. _ It is nevertheless very extensively used for that purpose. Toon, Tunea, Poma, or JEza:woon, the wood of Cedrela Toona (Nat. Ord. Cedrelacez), resembles mahogany, and is very much used for furniture, especially in the Hast Indies. It is not very often imported to this country. AmBoyna Woop, Kyapuca or K1aBooca Woop.—There are several varieties of this very beautiful wood found in our timber-yards; they are probably all furnished by the same tree, Pterospermum Indicum (Nat. Ord. Byttneria- cee). It is most beautifully mottled and curled, of various tints from light-red to dark-yellow, and always in small lumps, being evidently excrescences or wens cut from the trees. The varieties of Amboyna wood are principally used for inlaying and by the makers of ornamental snuff- boxes. Mr. Holtzapffel mentions the root of the Cocoa-nut Palm as being so much like Amboyna wood that it is scarcely distinguishable. Exony, Mauritius Esony, the wood of Dvrospyros 330 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. Ebenus (Nat. Ord. Hbenacez), (Plate XX. fig. 106,) is imported in square sticks three or four feet in length and seldom exceeding four inches in thickness ; it is much used for inlaying and turnery. Its colour is black. Brack Hpony. Diospyros melanoxylon.—tThis well- known black wood is very hard, heavy, and susceptible of a high polish. It is imported in sticks rarely more than four inches square and four feet in length. About 80 tons are imported annually. Kast Inpian Expony, or Buacx-woop, Dalbergia lati- folia (Nat. Ord. Leguminose), is also a black heavy wood occasionally brought from the Hast Indies. Campuor Woop. Laurus Camphora (Nat. Ord. Lau- raceé).—This wood’emits the camphor odour very strongly, and is imported occasionally from China for ss cabi- nets for entomologists and others. Iron Woop. Metrosideros vera (Nat. Ord. Myrtacee).— This wood is immensely hard and heavy. It is imported from China in small quantities for various purposes. SanpDaL Woop, Santalum album (Nat. Ord. Santalacee), is remarkable for its agreeable fragrance, which is a pre- servative from insects; this wood is much used in making work-boxes and other trinkets, small cabinets, etc. ASIATIC WOODS. Sor Satin Woop (Indian). ,Swretenia chloroxylon (Nat. Ord. Cedrelacez).—This is a handsome hard yellow wood, occasionally imported for cabinet-makers. CoRoMANDEL or CaLamMaNnpER Woop. Diospyros hirsuta (Nat. Ord. Hbenacee).—This is a very beautiful furniture- wood, variegated with longitudinal brown and yellow, or yellowish-brown stripes, softening one into the other. There are two other varieties of it, called Kadum Beriya (supposed to be from a different species, D. Hbenaster) and Omander. They all come from Ceylon. Patmyra, Porcupine, and SpeckLeD Woops—are the produce of one or more Palms, chiefly however from Cocos nucifera, the Cocoa-nut palm. The wood is called Porcu- pie or Palmyra when cut longitudinally, but fine prettily speckled veneers for inlaying are made by taking transverse sections ; the pieces of speckled wood are consequently very small. Brazil also furnishes these woods. Jak Woop. Artocarpus integrifolia (Nat. Ord. Artocar- pacea).—Jak or Jack-wood is from the Breadfruit-tree ; it is of a yellowish colour, resembling orange-wood, and is imported to this country chiefly for making backs for hair- brushes and for inlaying in marqueterie floors, ete. b02 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. AFRICAN Woops. The woods of Africa are very few in number, and only one is imported in considerable quantities: it is the Arrican Oak, or Arrican Trax. Oldfieldia Africana (Nat. Ord. Huphorbiacea).—Long as this valuable wood has been known, it was only in 1850 that its botanic cha- racters were determined. In consequence of some seeds germinating at Kew, it was at once ascertained by Mr. Ben- tham to be a new genus of Huphorbiacee, to which the name of Oldfieldia was given, in honour of the gentleman who sent the seeds. Tor some particular purposes in ship- building, this timber is unrivalled, but its great weight prevents its general application. The imports are con- siderable. A species of Ebony is also frequently brought from the African Gold Coast in small pieces, or sticks, about two inches square and three or four feet in length, but nothing is known of the tree which produces it. It is chiefly used for inlaying, turning, and for the handles of surgical in- struments. American Woops. THE WOODS OF NORTH AMERICA. The greatest portion of the building timbers imported AMERICAN WOODS. 333 consist of the Coniferous and other woods from North America: thus the White Pine or Deal of the United States of America, the produce of Pnus Strobus. The Yellow Pine or Deal, of Pinus palustris and P. mitis. The Red Pine or Deal, of Presinosa. The Pitch-Pine, Virginian Pine, and Georgian Pine, of Pinus rigida. The Hackmatack or Tamarack, of Larix Americana. The Virginian Red Cedar, of Juniperus Virginiana. The Red or Pencil Cedar, of Juniperus Ber- mudiana. The White Spruce, of Abies alba; and the Hemlock Spruce, of Adzes Canadensis,—constitute the most common Deals, Pines, and Cedars used in carpentry; they all belong to the Natural Order Conifere, and the trade in these timbers constitutes one of the most important branches of British commerce. QursBrc Oak is produced by Quercus alba (Corylacea). This wood is also sometimes called White Oak; it is used in ship-building, etc. Red Oak is from Quercus rubra; the Black Oak from Q. tinctoria ; and the Live Oak from Q. varens. The Walnut and Hickory woods belong to the Natural Order Juglandacee. We import the Black Walnut, pro- duced by Juglans nigra; White Walnut, or Butter-nut 304 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. wood, by J. exmerea; and Hickory, by Carya alba. These woods are chiefly used in making furniture, but Hickory is most valuable for hand-spikes. Maple, Bird’s-eye Maple, and Curly Maple are all va- nieties produced by Acer saccharinum, the Sugar Maple (Nat. Ord. Aceracec). Locust-Woov.—The wood of Hymenea Courbaril (Nat. Ord. Leguminosae). It is hard, very tough, and is much used in making ¢rexails for ship-carpenters ; its colour is a light yellow. The quantity imported in the form of ¢renaz/s is very considerable. THE WOODS OF THE AMERICAN ISLANDS. Butty-tree Woop, Brack Buity. Achras Sapota. (Nat. Ord. Sapotacea.)—The Sapodilla-tree is a very lofty timber-tree, furnishing a valuable hard wood of a greenish colour; it is now often imported, and used chiefly .in ship- building. Sapicu. —The wood of Acacia nye (Nat. Ord. Legu- minose). This wood has acquired some interest from its having been used in constructing the stairs of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, where its durability was subjected to the severest test, and after six months’ use the steps hardly AMERICAN WOODS. 335 exhibited any signs of wear. The Sabicu or Sabicue wood is extremely hard and tough; it has a dull red colour, and close short grain. It is imported from Cuba. Crepar (Jamaica and Honduras). Cedrela odorata (Nat. Ord. Cedrelacez). (Plate XX. fig. 104.)—This cedar is im- ported in large logs often three or four feet square; it is soft and red, resembling the pencil cedar. Its use is for making the inside portions of furniture. Manoeany. Swietenia Mahagoni (Nat. Ord. Cedrela- cee). (Plate XX. fig. 102.)—This wood is too well known to need description ; but.few, who have it constantly before their eyes in some form of domestic furniture, reflect upon the difficulties and dangers of those who are engaged in supplying this favourite wood to the European markets. The mahogany grows in dense forests, where it forms one of the most lofty and gigantic of tropical trees. The ma- hogany-seeker has to mount to the top of some high tree of the forest, whence he surveys the sea of verdure around him, and easily detects the trees he looks for by their mag- nificent dimensions; he then, with a small pocket-compass, which is his most valued friend, takes the bearings of those which he sees, and having descended, proceeds from his place of observation in search of them, marking the various 336 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. stems of trees which he passes, in order that he may safely retrace his steps. With immense labour and patience he fells the trees and lops and squares them, after which he has to cut roads through the forest to the nearest stream, to which the enormous logs of mahogany have to be drawn by timber-carriages and horses, and are there collected into large rafts; or each iog is marked, and allowed to swim down the stream to some place where its progress is arrested by persons employed for that purpose. The quantity of mahogany imported is immense, but the statistics of the timber-trade are so unsatisfactory that the author prefers omitting to give definite quantities, to the risk of pro- pagating error. It is chiefly imported from Honduras and Cuba, but several of the West India Islands furnish mahogany. Lienum Vitam. Guaiacum officinale (Nat. Ord. Zygo- phyllacee). (Plate XX. fig. 103.)—This very important wood comes chiefly from Jamaica; its chief use is in mak- ing blocks and pulleys for ships’ rigging, and it is much used by turners for various articles requiring a hard close- grained wood ; it also has some medicinal properties, and finds place in our pharmacopeeia. _It is imported in billets about three feet im length and a foot in diameter; the AMERICAN WOODS. 337 heart-wood is of a dark-brown colour, and intensely hard and heavy. Lance Woon, Duguetia Quitarensis (Nat. Ord. Anona- ee), is imported in poles fifteen to twenty feet in length, and six or seven inches in diameter, covered with a thin wrin- kled bark. Lance-wood is much used for the shafts of gigs and other similar vehicles, and for a variety of purposes re- quiring great strength and elasticity. It is imported from Cuba and from Guiana. GREENHEART, Nectandra Rodiai (Nat. Ord. Lauraceae), is a very fine, durable, hard wood, often imported from Demerara, and used as a substitute for Lignum-vite, which it slightly resembles ; latterly it has been employed in phar- macy, in consequence of its yielding a chemical principle called Beeberine. } Sattn Woop. aba Guianensis (?) (Nat. Ord. Ebena- cee.) —This beautiful wood, which has a light canary-yellow colour and satiny lustre, is imported chiefly from Nassau, in New Providence, one of the Bahama Islands. It comes in square logs about ten feet in length, and about eight inches square, and is used only for furniture and small fancy arti- cles of cabinet-work. Parrripce Woon, Heisterza coceimea ? (Nat. Ord. Olea- zZ 338 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. ce@.)—It is much doubted whether this is the wood of Heisteria ; some affirm it to be the produce of Andira in- ermis, a leguminous tree. It comes both from the West ‘Indies and the Brazils, in tolerable-sized planks ; it is of a reddish colour, beautifully streaked with parallel lines of a darker colour. Probably the woods of several trees bear the same name. . Cocus or Koxra Woop. Lepidostachys Roxburghit. (Nat. Ord. Scepacee.)—This wood is usually imported in short logs of about six or eight inches’ diameter, having bark and sap-wood of a light colour, while the heart- wood is of a rich deep brown, and extremely hard; it is much used in the manufacture of flutes and similar musical instruments. It comes from Cuba and other West India Islands. Zepra Woop, Gwuettarda speciosa (Nat. Ord. Cincho- macee), is brought in small planks from the West Indies ; its colour is intermediate between those of mahogany and rose-wood ; its variegations are less dark and more wavy than those of rose-wood. It is much valued for the finer kinds of furniture-wood. Tortoise-wood is probably a variety of the same species, AMERICAN WOODS. 339 Tur Woops or SoutH AMERICA. Rosg-woop.—The wood of several undetermined species of Zriptolomea (Nat. Ord. Leguminosa).—The varieties of -Rose-wood are too well known to need description ; they are _ exported from the Brazilian ports, in planks rarely exceeding twelve feet in length, flat on one side and round on the other; each being evidently one half of the stem, with the bark removed. The removal of the bark and splitting of the stem is probably for the purpose of ascertaining the quality of the wood before incurring the expense of trans- portation. Violet-wood and King-wood, two other beauti- ful Brazilian woods resembling the Rose-woods, are probably derived from other species of the same genus. ‘They are in much smaller pieces, usually in round sticks about four or five feet in length, and varying in thickness from two to six inches; the colours are clearer than those of Rose-wood. Snake Woop or Lerrer Woop, Piratinera Guianensis. (Nat. Ord. Artocarpacee.)—Probably the most beautiful of all fancy woods; it is of a rich chestnut-brown colour, beautifully mottled with large cloudy spots of deep umber- brown, strongly resembling the markings of some serpents. It is very scarce, and is only obtainable in small pieces ; it is in sticks of two or three inches’ diameter, rarely reaching 340 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. five or six inches, and is merely the central heart-wood of — a large tree. Mora Woon, Mora excelsa (Nat. Ord. Leguminose), is — the timber of one of the most majestic trees of Guiana, reaching the height of one hundred feet. Its colour is darker than mahogany, and its grain, close and tough, ren- ders it very valuable for ship-building. The imports of this wood from British Guiana are increasing considerably. Purrte Woop, or Purpre Heart. Copaiba pubiflora. (Nat. Ord. Leguminose.)—Another of the woods of Guiana, which is extensively used for making the sticks of musket ramrods. Its colour is peculiar, being a sort of puce; it — is imported only in small pieces. AUSTRALIAN AND New ZEALAND Woops. Huon Pine. Daerydium Franklinu (Nat. Ord. Taa- acee).—This timber of a large tree belonging to the Yew tribe is valuable for ship-building, for which purpose it is occasionally imported. Brut Gum Woop. Eucalyptus piperita. (Nat. Ord. Myrtacee.) (Plate XX. fig. 105.)—One of the most lofty trees in the world, often rising two hundred feet in height, with fine column-like stems rising one hundred to one AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND WOODS. 341 hundred and fifty feet without a branch. ‘The wood is very hard and difficult to work. A single plank was imported into Liverpool, intended, but too late, for the Great Exhi- bition ; it measured one hundred feet im length, two feet six inches broad, and three inches in thickness, and sold for more than £100. It is used chiefly for ship-building purposes. Rep Gum Woop. SLncalyptus resinifera.—Wood very similar to the last, but rarely in such large logs. Borany Bay Oax, Brrr-woop, Hr-Oax, Sue-Oak, and Forrest Oak, names applied to different species of Casuarma (Nat. Ord. Caswarinacee).—The species of which the timber is imported are C. ¢orulosa, the Forest-oak ; C. paludosa, the Swamp-oak ; C. equisetifolia, the He-oak ; and C. stricta, the She-oak and Beef-wood. ‘This peculiar group of trees, called Botany Bay Oaks, all yield wood of a similar character, and receive the above names indiscrimi- nately. It is ornamental, and well adapted for inlaying and marqueterie ; its colour is a light yellowish-brown, marked often with short veins of a redder colour. New Zeauanp Pine, or Cowpre Ping, Damara Austra- lis, (Nat. Ord. Conifere.)—This timber is much valued for masts and spars, for which purpose much is imported for 34.2 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. use in our navy-yards. It yields the largest and strongest spars of any known tree. THERE Is no branch of Economic Botany requiring the in- vestigation of men of science more than the history of Timber-trees ; it is lamentable to see talented botanists la- bouring over the definition of some species or variety, pos- sessing no other interest than the technical difficulties of its characters, whilst we are totally ignorant of even the names of the plants producing two-thirds of our most valuable timber and furniture woods. ‘This circumstance also offers an argument to those non-scientific persons who cavil at the technicology of science, and would have common ver- nacular names applied to all things; for amongst the woods of commerce this practice has prevailed, and has produced such a mass of errors, that it appears almost hopeless to expect to unravel them. For instance, we have a dozen different varieties called Lvon-wood; half-a-dozen Beef- woods ; four or five Satin-woods; and a host of others, named according to the fancy of the wood-cutters, shippers, CONCLUSION. 343 or importers; until it has become difficult for a dealer to know which sort of Lvon-wood, Beef-wood, Satin-wood, etc., his customer wants. The scientific botanist would have chosen less familiar, but certainly more definite, terms. This brings us to the conclusion of an attempt to describe the most important products of the Vegetable Kingdom which constitute the foreign commerce of our country. To many the number of articles will be a matter of sur- prise; but, numerous as the products are which the energy of man has discovered for his use and profit, they are few compared with those which a bountiful Providence has still in store for us. Not a year passes but adds to our riches in this respect; and when public attention and the investigations of scientific men are more fully directed to this branch of learning, an immense harvest will be reaped from the now unknown treasures of the vegetable kingdom. Many may say, Have we not all we require? The answer to this is, We might have said the same before Dr. Mont- gomery discovered that the Malays made the handles of their hatchets of the hardened juice sof a tree, and yet what inestimable benefits has that discovery conferred! How would the difficulties of the Submarine Telegraph have been overcome without Gurra Prercua? In order to 344 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. direct attention more fully to the vast importance of this study, Museums of Raw Produce should be formed on a large scale, showing not merely the products themselves, but all their known applications. At present we have only two rudimentary establishments of this kind, both too small to be of any great service, though useful in their way: they are the Botanical Museum at Kew, and the Col- lection of Imports at Liverpool, made by the author for the Great Exhibition, and now in the Free Public Museum of Liverpool. Ns Acacia Bark . Gum Ach ; Adriatic Oak African Woods —— Oak. Teak —— Ebony . Hemp . Agra-Agra as Algaroba . Algarobilla . Alkanet Root Aloes . . Aloe fibre Allspice . Almond, Sweet —— Bitter . Almond, Jordan Valencia . Barbary Amadou . Ama-tsja - Ambari : Amboyna Wood American Woods . Anatto Anise . Aniseed Angelica . Anotto Arnotto AKOnIN 3 Areca Nuts . ais! Arrowroot, West Indian —— Kast Indian . Brazilian . —— Tahiti. Page 57. 58 58 . 295 \uhZp . 182 . 329 . da2 . 228 » 115 . 115 » WY . 228 . 228 . 224 . 298 76 77 78 84 546 Asphalte . Attar of Roses. Australian Woods. — Copal . Avignon Berries Babool Bark. Gum Balsam, Canada Baltic Oak . Bamia . Banana Bandikai . i rn Barba Hispanica . Barcelona Nut . Bark, Acacia — Babool. — Cassia. —— Canella —— Clove . —— Culilawan Cork-tree . ——. Mangrove —— Oak : Pomegranate Barley Long-eared . INDEX Page 25 | Barley, Common 277 Spring 340 | —— Winter 247 | —— Sprat P 219 Battledore . Bar Wood . 190 ast 242 | Beans, American . 301 Egyptian . 327 French AQF Java . 127 | Tunga Wood . 8328 | Turpentine . , Aooe . 828 | Urena . 328 . 328 | Valonia . 803 | Vanile . 193 | Vanilla : . 250 | Vegetable Silk . 86 . 189 . 109° . 1 181-183 Vegetable Tallow . Vegetable Ivory Vetches Violet Wood Virginian Red Cedar —— Pine Walnut : Black . —— White. Wood . Warree BAL Water Melon . Wheat, Winter Indian Chinese Vegetable Wax, Chinese S. American . Myrtle INDEX. Page . 280 | Wheat, Summer . . 280 Mummy . . 280 Polish . . 281 | —— Spelt 281 One-grained . . 281 | White Spruce . . 296 Oat 18 | —~— Lupins 339 Date . 333 | Wild Locust . 333 | Wool, Cotton 62 | Yellow Pine 328 Deal 303 Berries 328 Wood . 15 | Yerba 48 | Yercum fibre 2 Young Fustic . PRINTED BY JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, ~ LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.