£7 MIMUSOPS HEXANDRA. 
vated places. Flowers during the hot and beginning of the wet 
season. 
The wood is remarkably hard and heavy, for these reasons 1t is 
much used by the washermen to beetle their cloth on. 
16. CASALPINIA SAPPAN. 
Linn. Spec. Plant. 545. 
Buckan-chitto of the Telingas. 
Sappan Wood Tree of the English. 
Trunk irregular, the largest twelve feet or more in circumference. 
Bark very thin, ash-coloured, that of the branches thickly set with 
round scabrous tuberosities, each crowned with a small sharp 
somewhat curved prickle; these drop as the wood becomes 
large. The young shoots have the prickles, but want their 
tuberous receptacles. 
Branches few, spreading, irregularly armed as above mentioned. 
Leaves alternate, abruptly twice feathered, oblong, from twelve to 
twenty inches long: feathers ten totwelve pair. Leaflets oppo- 
site, from eight to fourteen pair, somewhat rhomboidal, end- 
nicked, smooth, three-quarters of an inch long by three-eighths 
broad. 
Petiole common, round, smooth, generally armed with three prickles 
at the insertion of the feather, the pair below, and the single 
one above. 
Stipules obliquely lanced, falling. 
Panicle terminal, large, composed of many simple racemes. 
Peduncle and Pedicels round and smooth. 
Bracts lanced, concave, one-flowered, falling. 
Flowers very numerous, pretty large, yellow, without smell. 
Calyx as in the genus. 
Corol: the four lateral petals equal, the upper (there is none below) 
small and streaked with red. 
Stamen ascending towards the upper coloured petal. 
Stigma tubular. 
Legume rhomboidal, three inches long, one and three-quarters broad, 
much compressed. 
Seeds three or four, very rarely five, oval, alittle compressed, smooth, 
hard, light brown. 
This very valuable tree I lately discovered to be a native of that 
chain of mountains which separates the Circars from the Berar 
Rajah’s dominions, where it grows to be a very large tree. Flowers 
during the wet season. Seed ripe in January and February. 
This tree is by no means common on this coast, and it is only © 
among the abovementioned mountains that I have found it wild. 
It is also a native of the south-west frontier of the Bengal province, 
and probably of many other parts. The markets over India are 
supplied with wood from Siam, and the Malay countries to the east-_ 
ward. I have some thousands of young trees about the Company’s 
pepper plantations, which thrive well, and in the course of a few 
years will be fully as large as what is generally met with at market, 
although, like others of this nature, the colour of the wood improves 
by age, and ought therefore to be left till the colour has attained to 
its utmost degree of perfection. The uses of this wood in dying are 
numerous throughout Asia; it is an ingredient in the red dye of 
this coast, commonly called the Chay dye; as may be seen above 
under the description of Oldenlandia umbellata. 
Where a cheap red is required for cotton cloth, this wood is em- 
CASALPINIA SAPPAN. 18 
ployed by our Telinga dyers, but they cannot make it stand; their 
general process is as follows; suppose for four yards of bleached 
cotton cloth. It must be well washed, to take out any remains of the 
quick-lime, &c. used in bleaching; an infusion of half a pound of 
powdered caducay in a pint and an half of cold water strained, is 
employed to prepare the cloth, which is done by wetting it twice 
in the same infusion, drying it between and after. Next day it is 
twice wetted in a strong solution of alum, and as often dried in the 
sun. Next day a decoction of the sappan wood is prepared as fol- 
lows: take one pound of sappan wood in powder, water twelve 
quarts, boil it till a third is consumed; divide the remaining eight 
quarts of the decoction into three parts, one of four, and the other 
two of two quarts each; into the four quarts put the cloth, wet it 
well, wring it gently and half dry it; it is again wetted in one of 
the small portions, and when half dry, wetted for the third and last 
time in the other remaining portion of the decoction; dry it in the 
shade, which finishes the process. 
This wood seems possessed of nearly the same quality as Brazi- 
letto, its infusion and decoction are heightened by alkalies, and 
destroyed by mineral acids; a solution of tin in aqua regia precipi- 
tates from the infusion a beautiful crimson coloured lake; the wood 
itself is orange coloured, without smell or taste ; it gives to spirits a 
saffron colour. 
This tree seems as if it would be a very proper prop for pepper 
vines to runon. Iam now making the trial; should it answer, 
the cultivation of pepper over these parts of the coast may be ren- 
dered exceedingly profitable; for when the vines have done bear- 
ing, the sappan wood will have acquired more age, and of course 
more colour than is generally met with, and will consequently sell 
for a higher price, probably as much as will defray the expence of 
the whole culture, and the rent of the land during the time it has 
been occupied by the pepper vines. ? 
The numerous thorns, with which this tree is covered, render it 
very proper for high extensive fences, which will afterwards become 
profitable. It is of a pretty quick growth; in two years from the 
time the seeds are sown, if in a pretty good soil, they will have — 
attained to the height of eight or ten feet, and begin to flower and 
bear seed; about the same time the centre part of the stem begins to 
acquire colour, which yearly improves in quality, as well as in- 
creases in quantity. 
17. SWIETENIA FEBRIFUGA. 
Roxburgh’s monography, printed by order of the East India Company. 
Swietenia Soymida. Duncan tent. maug. de Swietenia Soymida. 
Edinb. 1794. 
Soymida of the Telingas. 
Trunk very straight, rising to a great height, of a great thickness, 
and covered with a grey, scabrous, cracked bark. 
Branches numerous, the lower spreading, the higher ascending, 
forming a very large shady head. 
Leaves alternate, about the extremities of the branchlets, 
feathered, about twelve inches long. 
abruptly 
Leaflets opposite, very 
short, petiolated, three or four pair, oval, obtuse or end-nicked, 
the lower side generally extending a little further down on the 
petiolet than the upper, smooth, shining, from three to five 
inches long, and from two to thrée broad, the inferior smallest. 
Petiole round, smooth, about nine or ten inches long. 
Stipules none. 3 
