33B 



Jussicucan, or Natural, St/stem of Plants. 



ton, an article of immense importance to the world : these 

 threads, when examined by the microscope, will be seen to be 

 finely toothed, which explains the cause of their adhering 

 together with greater facility than those of Bombax and several 

 Apocyneae, which are destitute of teeth, and which cannot be 

 spun into thread without an admixture of cotton. 



Order XXIV. BOMBA^CE^. 

 Distinguished from the last by the imbricate aestivation of 

 the calyx, and the arrangement of the stamens in five sets, or, 

 in Linnean language, brotherhoods. The species are mostly 

 fine trees with large showy flowers, and natives of the tropics. 

 Some of them are among the largest trees in the world : 

 Adans6n2«, the baobab of Senegal, has been seen with a dia- 

 meter of twenty-five feet ; and specimens of Bombax Ceiba 

 and Eriodendron anfractu5sum, a hundred feet in height, 

 are not uncommon. The wood of all the species is light and 

 soft, as in ikfalvaceae, from which this order probably does not 

 differ in its medicinal properties. 



Ochrdma Swt, 

 Hellcteres i. 



Carol Inea L. 

 Adansonia L. 



Bombax L. 

 Myrodia Schreb. 



Order XXV- BYTTNER/J^CSvE. 

 Much the same kind of plants as those of the last two 

 orders, from which they were not formerly distinguished, 

 and from which they scarcely differ, except in their bilocular 

 anthers. Many of the sterculias are fine umbrageous trees, 

 the seeds of which are large and eatable ; especially those of 

 the famous kola, which, being chewed, possess the property 

 of rendering bad water pleasant to the palate. The seeds of 

 the chicha, another and very noble species of the genus, are 

 highly esteemed in Brazil for the dessert. Astrapse'a, and 

 several other genera related to it, are among the most beauti- 

 ful in the world. The flowers of a species of Pentapetes, 

 called by the Indians machucunha, give out a mucilaginous 

 refrigerant juice, which is employed in gonorrhoea. Gua- 

 zuma wlmifolia has its fruit filled with a pleasant mucilage, 

 which is sweet and very agreeable ; an extract of the bark of 

 the same plant is used in Martinique to clarify sugar ; its old 

 bark is employed, in the form of a strong decoction, as a sudo- 

 rific. Walther/« Douradinha contains a great deal of mu- 

 cilage, and is employed by the Brazilians as an antisyphilitic. 



