4 
THIS tree rifes to a great height, fending off numerous larg 
branches, which fpread to a considerable extent, and have a beautifi 
appearance : the trunk is ered, thick, and covered with rough bark 
of agreyifli or afh-colour : the leaves are pinnated, alternate, confid- 
ing of feveral pairs (about 14) of fmall pinnce, which are oppofite, 
•oblong, obtufe, entire, fmooth, of a yellowifh green colour, and (land 
upon very fhort footftalks : the flowers approach to the papilionaceous 
kind, and are produced in race mi or lateral chillers : the calyx confifts 
of four deciduous leaves, which are patent or reflexed, oblong, or 
rather ovate, entire, fmooth, nearly equal in fize, and ftraw-coloured 
or yellowifh : the petals are three, ovate, concave, acute, indented, 
d plaited at the edges, about the length of the calyx, and of a 
yellowifh colour, beautifully variegated with red veins : the peduncles 
are about half an inch long, and each furnimed with a joint, at 
h the flower turns inwards : the filaments arc 
commo 
but in feme flowers we have found four, in others only two; they 
are purple, united at the bafe, and furnifhed with incumbent brownifb 
anthers : the germen is oblong, compreffed, incurved, ftanding upon 
a fhort pedicle : the ftyle is tapering, fomewhat longer than the fila- 
ments, and terminated by an obtufe fligma : the fruit is a pod of. a 
roundiih compreiTed form, from three to five inches long, containin 
two, three, or four flattifh angular Alining feeds, lodged in a dai 
pulpy matter, and covered by feveral rough longitudinal fibres. The 
flowers, according to Jacquin, appear in O&ober and Novemb 
The generic character of Tamarindus is wholly founded upon th 
fpecies, as no other of the fame family has hitherto been difcovered 
Though Linnaeus in his laft edition of the Genera plantarum has 
followed jacquin's defcription of the Tamarindus, in obferving that 
the filaments are united at the bafe, a circumftance which 01 
g 
» 
» 
have placed it in the clafs monadelphia, yet notwithflanding this 
they neither thought proper to remove it from the clafs Triandria^ 
where it alfo has been iince retained in Murray's edition of the Syftema 
VegetabilitiiB ; and is coniequently thus daffed by us in the fyftematic 
arrangement prefixed to the firft volume of this work- Since that 
howe^ 
\* ¥ 
Conf:denible di'fft 
portunity of examining th 
d , but this variety depends upon the locality of the tree 
fl 
;er 
