21 BASSIA LATIFOLIA. 
with the flowers in March and April. Seed ripe in July and 
August. 
This is a very useful tree ; the wood is hard, very strong, and 
proper for naves of wheel-carriages, kc. 
The flowers are eat raw by the natives of the mountainous parts 
of the Circars; the jackals also eat them. They have a sweet spiri- 
tuous taste, and a spirit, which 1s strong and intoxicating, is distilled 
from them by the hill people. The seeds yield a large quantity of 
oil by expression, but it is thick, and of a quality inferior to castor 
oil, and used only by the poorer people to burn. 
On the apices of the flowers, before they open, there is frequently 
a drop of a whitish, soft, tasteless resin to be found. 
20. DILLENIA PENTAGYNA. 
Rawadam of the Telingas. 
Trunk erect, very large. 
Branches numerous, ascending. 
Leaves alternate, petioled, about the extremities of the branchlets, 
oblong, pointed, sharp-sawed, having large elevated parallel 
veins, smooth, shining, except when very young, then downy, 
from twelve to twenty inches long, and from four to six broad. 
Petiole about two inches long, deep channelled, embracing the 
branchlets, leaving a permanent mark when it falls off. 
Peduncles collected in bundles from tuberosities over the naked 
woody two or three years old branchlets, erect, round, smooth, 
two inches long, undivided, one-flowered. 
Bracts no other than the rust-coloured downy scales that surround 
the insertion of the peduncles. 
Flowers middle-sized, yellow. 
Calyx as in the genus. 
Petals oblong, or lanced. 
Filaments many, of which the interior ten are twice the length of 
the rest. 
Anthers sword-shaped: those of the short or exterior filaments are 
erect; of the long filaments twice the size of the others, and 
spread out over them in form of a star. 
Germs five. 
Styles five, short. 
Stigmas lanced, spreading. 
Pericarp pendulous, size of a small nutmeg; the firm, fleshy leaflets 
of the calyx (here not increased in size) surround and entirely 
inclose five small soft capsules, which contain a soft transpa- 
rent gluten. 
Seeds reniform, few come to maturity, generally one, rarely two, in 
each capsule. 
This tree is a native of the valleys far up among the mountains ; 
it flowers in March and April. 
In the plate the dissected flower and germ are magnified; the 
fruit of its natural size, when ripe; the seed magnified. 
21. BUTEA FRONDOSA. 
Erythrina monosperma. Lamarck encycl. 2. p. 391. 
Plaso. Rheed. mal. 6. p. 29. tab. 16, 17. 
Maduga of the Telingas. 
BUTEA FRONDOSA. Ze 
Trunk irregular, generally alittle crooked, covered with ash-coloured, 
spongy, thick, slightly scabrous Bark, the middle strata of 
which contain a red juice, hereafter to be mentioned. 
Branches very irregularly bent in various directions; young shoots 
downy. 
Leaves alternate, spreading, three’d, from eight to sixteen inches 
long. Leaflets emarginated, or rounded at the apex, leathery, 
above shining and pretty smooth, below slightly hoary, en- 
tire; the lateral are obliquely oval, from five to seven inches 
long, and from three to four and a half broad; the terminal 
inverse-hearted, or in other words, transversely oval, and con- 
siderably larger than the lateral. 
Common Petiole round, when young downy, length of the leaflets. 
Stipules of the petiole small, recurved, downy; of the leaflets 
awled. 
Racemes terminal, axillary, and from tuberosities over the naked 
woody branchlets, rigid, covered with a soft, greenish-purple- 
coloured down. 
Flowers papilionaceous, pendulous, numerous, pediceled, large, 
their ground colour a beautiful deep red, shaded with orange 
and silver-coloured down, which gives them a most elegant 
appearance. 
Pedicels round, about an inch long, articulated near the apex, and 
covered with the same greenish velvet-like down. 
Bracts, one below the insertion of each pedicel, lanced, falling ; 
two similar but smaller, pressing on the calyx, falling also. 
Calyx belled, leathery, two-lipped: upper lip large, scarce emargi- 
nated; under lip three-toothed, covered with the same dark 
green down that the raceme and pedicels are covered with, 
withering. 
Corol. Banner reflected, egged, pointed, very little longer than the 
wings. Wings ascending, lanced, length of the keel. Keel be- 
low, two-parted, ascending, large, mooned, length of the wings 
and banner. 
Filaments one and nine, ascending in a regular semicircle, about as 
long as the corol. 
Anthers equal, linear, erect. 
Germ short, thick, pediceled, lanced, downy. 
Style ascending, a little larger than the filaments. 
Stigma small, glandulous. 
Legume pediceled, large, pendulous, all but the apex, where the 
seed is lodged leafy, downy, about six inches long, by two 
broad, never opens of itself. 
Seed one, lodged at the point of the legume, oval, much compressed, 
smooth, brown, from one and a quarter to one and a half inch 
long, and about one broad. 
This is a middle sized, or rather a large tree, not common on the 
low lands of this coast, but very common among the mountains ; 
casts its leaves during the cold season; they come out again with the 
flowers about the months of March and April; seed ripe in June 
and July. 
From natural fissures, and wounds made in the bark of this tree, 
during the hot season, there issues a most beautiful red juice, which 
soon hardens into a ruby-coloured, brittle, astringent gum; but it 
soon loses its beautiful colour if exposed to the air. To preserve the 
colour, the gum must be gathered as soon as it becomes hard, and 
closely corked up in a bottle. 
This gum held in the flame of a candle swells, and burns away 
slowly, without smell or the least flame, into a coal, and then into 
fine light white ashes; held in the mouth it soon dissolves, it tastes 
strongly but simply astringent; heat does not soften it, but rather 
