Ficus, MONOECIA MONANDRIA, 5o41 
paired, axillary, sessile, when ripe the size and colour of a 
middle sized, red cherry, downy. Calyx of the fruit three- 
nerved, | 
Note. Fig. 1. of Plukenet’s 178th Table is a much better 
figure of this tree than Fig. 4. of the same table, 
The Bramins are partial to the leaves of this tree to make 
their plates to eat off; they are jointed together by inkles, . 
_ Bird-lime is prepared from the tenacious milky juice 
which every part of the tree yields in abundance on being 
wounded, 
Birds eat the fruit, and the seeds grow the better for having 
passed through them ; if they drop in the alze of the leaves of 
the Palmyra tree, (Borassus flabelliformis) they grow 
and extend their descending parts so as in time to embrace 
entirely the parent Palmyra, except its upper parts, In 
very old ones the top thereof is just seen issuing from the 
trunk of the Banyan asif it grew from thence, whereas it runs 
down through its centre and_has its roots in the ground, the 
Palm being the oldest. For.such the Hindoos entertain a re- 
ligious veneration, saying itis a Beli: AS instituted a by 
Providence. | z 
25. F. sleatien: Roxb. 
Leaves from oval to oblong, pointed, thick, firm, aa is 
sy. Fruit in axillary pairs, sessile, oval, smooth, the size of 
an olive, | Stipules nearly as long as the leaves, smooth and. 
a 
fo aoe the vernacular name by which this tree is known 
to the inhabitants of the Pundua, and Juntipoor moun- 
tains, which bound the province of Silhet on the north, where 
it is indigenous, and grows to the size of a full grown mango 
tree; that is fully as large as the great Maple, or Sycamore 
that grows in England. The season at which the young fruit. 
appears, or at least when I procured it, was May and June; 
and they were ripe in August and September. . Every. part 
abounds with rich milky juice, which furnishes. 
third of its weight of Caoutchouc. 
