[ 199 ] 



XXI. On the Genus Aquilaria. By the late William Roxburgh, M.D., F.L.S. 8fc. ; 

 with Remarks by the late Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq., F.B.S., F.L.S. 8fc. 

 Communicated by Robert Brown, Esq., D.C.L., F.B.S., President of the Linnean 

 Society. 



Read February 18, 1851. 



Aquilaria, Lamarck, Encycl. i. 49. Gen. PI. ed. Schreb. N. 1753. 



Decandria Monogtnia. 



Sect. Flowers incomplete. 



Gen. Char. Calyx campanulate, 5-cleft. Corol none. Nectary 10-leaved, alternate with the stamina. 

 Capsule superior, 2-celled, 2-valved. Seed solitary. Embryo inverse, without perisperm. 



1970. Aquilaria Agallocha, Roxb. [EL Ind. ii. p. 422.] Leaves lanceolar. Umbels soli- 

 tary, subsessile, between the leaves. 

 Agallochum, or Aloe-wood tree. 

 Aguru, the Sanscrit name of its precious wood. 

 Aggur, Uggor, Agor, &c, its Hindi and Bengali names. 

 Agha-loo-chee, Agalugi, Agulugin, Yelunjooj, its Arabic names. 

 Owd and Owd-hindee of the Persians. 



The tree which I am about to describe (from young ones growing in the Botanic Gar- 

 den at Calcutta), and which, when of age, produces at least a variety of that ancient and 

 precious aromatic, called Aloe-wood, is a native of the mountainous districts to the east 

 and south-east of Silhet *, the most easterly province of Bengal, in about lat. 24°-25 c N., 



* Extract of a letter from Robert Keith Dick, Esq., the Judge and Magistrate at Silhet, to Dr. Roxburgh, dated 

 Silhet, 9th December, 1808:— 



" I am much obliged by your affording me the perusal of the accompanying account of the Aggur tree ; and in 

 returning it, I take the opportunity of giving you such information on that subject as I was able to obtain lately on a 

 short interview with a landholder in this district, who employs his own ryuts in procuring Aggur wood in the hills 

 adjoining his property, and is himself concerned in the trade of it ; and as it was hastily committed to paper, previous 

 to my reading the enclosure, it may prove so far satisfactory, in as far as some of the particulars nearly correspond. 



" The wood is brought here for sale from the country of Kuchar, and from the southern parts of this Zillah, par- 

 ticularly the divisions of Puthureea and Lunglah. The tree is known in the hills here by the Bengal name, Tuggur. 

 Its extreme height is from sixty to seventy haths (cubits), and the trunk from two to two and a half haths in dia- 

 meter. The general height of a full-grown tree is from twenty to thirty haths f. Excepting that part of the wood 

 which is reserved for the extraction of the Uttur, the rest is useless, — at least never applied to any purpose in this 

 district. I have not been able to procure any information about the flower, or seed of the tree ; they say neither have 

 been seen here. This is perhaps owing to the people going to cut the wood chiefly at one period of the year, viz. 

 the dry season. It is a precarious and tedious business procuring the wood which yields the Uttur, as few trees con- 



f To the branches must be meant. 



