America, and Ernst. (in Seeman’s Journ. Bot. 1867, p. 
273) says that it is not indigenous in Oaraccas. It has 
been introduced into Western Africa, and I have eaten 
the fruit in the Cape de Verd Islands; but curiously 
enough I can find no record of its having been ever 
cultivated in India, into which country the Portuguese 
must have endeavoured to introduce so conspicuous a 
plant, and one so easily grown from seed; nor is it in- 
cluded in Watt’s “* Dictionary of the Economic Products 
of India.” 
The Mammee apple varies in size from that of a small 
orange to almost a child’s head. There is an excellent 
painting of its foliage and fruit in the North Gallery at 
Kew (n. 64). A rough, leathery, bitter rhind, and a 
thinner interior one enclose a firm, somewhat spongy 
white pulp, soon turning yellowish, of a hard, fibrous con- 
sistence, sweetish taste, and slightly aromatic flavour. 
This surrounds one to four large brown, oblong, rather 
compressed, rugose nuts, with a hard, fibrous coat, and 
oily, fleshy cotyledons. The seeds vary greatly in size. 
Opinions as to the gratefulness of the flesh of the Mammee 
apple differ much. Sloane writes of it, as “one of the 
most pleasant and grateful to be met with in Jamaica,” 
adding, that swine get extremely fat on it. No other 
_ verdict on it that I have met with is so flattering, and the 
fact that it is not admitted amongst the table fruits of the 
tropics is proof of disfavour. My own opinion of that 
which I ate was, that it was comparable to a good turnip, 
flavoured as above, i.e. sweetish, and faintly aromatic. 
By the Portuguese and earlier British residents in the 
West Indies, the fruit was cut in slices, and eaten with 
wine and sugar, and also candied. A liqueur is obtained 
by distillation from the flowers infused in spirits of wine, 
called Hau de Creole, and Créme des Creoles. The bark 
yields an acrid, resinous gum, of great value for the extir- 
pation of chigoes. The cotyledons yield a hair oil. The 
wood is poor; but the tree, with its brilliant green leaves 
and deliciously scented flower, is so handsome an object 
that de Tussac eulogizes it as “la Siréne végétale.” 
The earliest notice I find of the Mammee apple is in 
Dalechamp’s “ Historia generum Plantarum,” published 
in 1586 ; but in this, as in other old authors, it is perhaps 
