146 BANCROFT ON THE HOG-GUM TREE OF JAMAICA. 



faint smell, and gradually hardens into a mass of the nature 

 of Gum-Resin, at first of a light yellow, but in time becom- 

 ing brown, that is very inflammable, and burns with a smoke 

 yielding an aromatic and rather agreeable odour, and is well 

 known in this island by the name of Hog-Gum. It is chiefly 

 collected for sale by the Maroon Negroes, who, when they 

 meet with old and decayed Hog-Gum trees, dig about the 

 main roots projecting from the stem, where they seldom fail 

 to find it in masses that sometimes measure eight or nine 

 inches in diameter. To obtain the gum by incisions from 

 living trees would cost them too much time and trouble. 



From the description which has been given of the plant, 

 its distinctive botanical characters appear to be the follow- 

 ing : — Sepals five, aestivation quincuncial. Petals five, sub- 

 coriaceous, sestivation contorted. Stamens fifteen, encircled 

 at base by a disk, united at their lower half into a tube, di- 

 vided above into five fasciculi, bearing each three anthers to- 

 wards its base ; style one, stigmas five, radiate ovary five- 

 celled, cells two seeded ; fruit a succulent subcoriaceous peri- 

 carp crowned with the salient style and stigmas, and by abor- 

 tion one-celled, one-seeded; seed arillated, and pseudo-mo- 

 nocotyledonous. 



Before I conclude, an apology may be proper on my part 

 for giving publicity to this account of the Hog-Gum tree, 

 ■when I have stated that Dr Bertero had written a partial 

 description of it while here in 1821. In the same year he 

 returned to Europe, where it appears from De CandoUe's 

 Prodromus, that he communicated to botanists, and more 

 particularly to that author and to Professor Balbis, informa- 

 tion and specimens of various plants he had discovered in the 

 West Indies, two of which belong to the same natural order 

 with our plant, viz. Mahurea speciosa, and Clusia acuminata, 

 the latter being given upon Dr Bertero's sole authority ; and 

 yet his name is not quoted concerning any of the other plants 

 included among the Gutlifercp, whence it seems to be a natu- 

 ral conclusion, that he may have thought the liotes he had 

 taken of the Hog-Gum tree insufficient for publication. It 



