Lawsonia. OCTANDRIA MONOGYNIA, | 259 
cross-armed, many flowered. Bractes scarcely any. Flow- 
ers small, greenish-yellow, very fragrant. Petals orbicular, 
inserted into the divisions of the calyx; margins involute, 
and very much curled, as in Lagerstremia. Filaments 
longer than the corol, inserted by pairs into the calyx 
between the petals. Germ superior, four-celled ; ovula nu- 
merous, attached to the axis. Style the length of the sta- 
mens, somewhat bent. Stigma simple. Capsule globular, | 
the size ofa grain of pepper, four-grooved, with the apex . 
depressed, having in it part of the remaining style, four- 
celled ; partitions membranaceous. Seeds angular, wedge- 
_ form, inserted by their. apices round the middle, or en- 
larged part of a centrical, columnar receptacle. Embryo 
with centripetal radicle, and no perisperm. 
It is much psed for hedges, growing readily from cut- 
tings; consequently fertile seeds are net often met with. 
The flowers are remarkably fragrant, whether fresh or 
dry, and are particularly grateful at a distance. 
The species called spinosa is nothing more, I imagine, 
than the same plant growing on a dry sterile soil ; at 
least, in such soils, [ have often found it very thorny, the 
branchlets being then short and rigid, with sharp thorny 
Points, 
The fresh sears beat up with Catechu, dyes the nails 
and skin of a reddish orange colour, which is much ad- | 
mired by the fair sex allover India. The fresh made. 
paste is laid on at bed time, and removed in the morn- 3 
ing ; the colour remains till the nails or epedermisi is re- 
newed, or removed. 
‘The leaves yield in decoction a porter coloured aes : 
I have found it a deep orange colour, which acids des- - 
troy, while ‘alkalies and infusions of astringent vegeta-_ 
bles deepen it ; this decoction dyes the finger of a deep — 
Orange ; but does not communicate any colour to cloth 
variously prepared, nor could I procure any precipitate 
from the decoction worth attending to, “ 
Gg2 
