150 THE TALLOW-TREE AND 
The plant often stands six feet high, very conspicuous from the golden 
hue of the loose and much-branched panicles. As far as I can judge 
from an indifferent specimen, the mericarps of Dorema Aucheri, Boiss., 
seem to differ in the juga not being continuous elevated lines, but in- 
terrupted and tuberculate. 
(To be continued.) 
Kew Gardens Museum: TALLOW-TREE, and Insect Wax of China. 
- Time was, and not many years ago, when animal fat and animal wax 
were exclusively employed in the manufacture of candles ; now, thanks to 
our increased and daily increasing knowledge of the properties of plants, 
by far the majority of our candle-makers employ vegetable tallow and 
vegetable wax. Many of our readers are old enough to remember 
the surprise that was occasioned by the discovery of Humboldt, of the 
Wax Palm (Ceroxylon Andicola, now cultivated in the Royal Gardens), 
whose trunk is coated with fine wax, which exudes to the surface. 
Other Palms of South America yield a ceraceous substance in the same 
way, and the produce is an extensive article of commerce. One has 
only to read the highly interesting lecture delivered at the Society of 
Arts, on the 5th of February, 1852, by G. F. Wilson, Esq., (afterwards 
printed by Lewis and Son, Finch Lane,) ‘On the Stearic Candle 
Manufacture,’ where nine hundred hands are employed in their 
works at Vauxhall alone, and where they have Jately been making 
one hundred tons (£7000 worth) of candles weekly, from wax and tal- 
low of vegetable origin, to be satisfied of the vast commercial importance 
of these two comparatively new substances. This Company has done 
us the favour to present our Museum of Vegetable Products with a 
full series of the vegetable waxes and tallows employed by them. At 
| . p.29 of the above-mentioned pamphlet, Mr. Wilson directs attention 
to two of these substances. “On the table,” he says, “ are specimens 
of crystalline wax, I believe Rhus succedaneum, from China, and of the 
vegetable tallow of the Stillingia sebifera, also from China." These are 
what are here noticed as the “ Insect-wax of China," and the Tallow-tree 
of China; and being anxious to obtaiu all the information in our 
power respecting them, Dr. Wallich has kindly directed our attention 
to the seventh volume of the * Journal of the Agricultural and Horti- 
