448 Lieut. -Col. Madden on some Plants 



the Calcutta Botanic Garden. I am satisfied that the Himalayan 

 plant is identical with that of the Gangetic plains ; in the hills 

 it is called Dek or Jek and Betain ; in the plains, Bakayan, 

 a name which is applied to M. sempervirens, As. Res. xi. 170. 

 No specific name could be more inappropriate, since it is com- 

 pletely leafless during the winter months ; and this appears to 

 be true also, to a somewhat less extent, of the West Indian 

 M. sempervirens, Swartz, which is said to vary from a small bush 

 to a tree. Seemann (Kew Journal of Botany, October 1851) 

 informs us that this is a native of Panama, and known as * Ja- 

 sinto.' DeCandolle (i. 621) mentions Jamaica as its habitat, 

 and says, "priore minor, florens jam biennis, folia tardius au- 

 tumno deponens, et tepidarium per hyemem in nostris hortis 

 requirens/' Roxburgh (ii, 395) adds to the difficulty : he says 

 M. sempervirens is " a native of Persia, now common throughout 

 India It blossoms the greater part of the year in our gar- 

 dens, and is perfectly distinct from Azedarak, which is a robust, 

 deciduous timber tree, and this is a small delicate evergreen, of 

 short duration compared with the other/^ He gives Bakarja as 

 the Hindustani name, — evidently the Bengali name, Bakarjan, 

 of M. Azederach. This last he calls a native of China. Graham 

 (Cat. of Bombay Plants, p. 30) says it is common " about vil- 

 lages'' in the Concan and Deccan, S. India. Jacquemont 

 (Voyage dans PInde, iii. 147) finds it under the same circum- 

 stances in the Punjab, but scarcely indigenous, nor has it the 

 least claim to be so considered anywhere in Northern India. Its 

 Sanscrit names, Mahatikta, ' the great Bitter,' and Mahanimb, 

 therefore, go for nothing, and are not in the Amera Kosha. 

 The Persian Azad-i-darakht, 'the spreading tree,' which gives 

 it the specific name, with its popular one, ' Indian or Persian 

 Lilac,' is compatible with its importation from America by the 

 Portuguese, who, like other Roman Catholic people, use the 

 berries in rosaries (Bead- tree) ; once introduced, its "very great 

 beauty," and flowers like the Lilac, sweetly fragrant (Roxburgh), 

 would speedily cause its general diff'usion. Wight and Arnott 

 (Prodromus, p. 117) found Roxburgh's own specimens of M, 

 Azedarach and sempervirens so much alike as to appear as if cut 

 from the same tree ; and the figure of the latter in the Botanical 

 Register, t. 643, may very well be M. Azedarach in a young state, 

 and forced in a stove. In Dr. Royle's List, No. 191, Bakain 

 is entered as M. sempervirens ; and in February 1850 I saw this 

 last in the Calcutta Botanic Garden in full flower, a tree 30 feet 

 high, called Moha nim by the Bengali gardeners, and quite the 

 same with the Bakayan of Northern India. 



Timmue (for Timmur) or Taigbul : a mountain shrub ; and 

 an arboreous species on the lower hills (p. 84). The first, well 



