Phytolaccee.] THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 319 
are of gigantic size, and analogous to the Mexican C. Quinoa, which, forming so impor- 
tant an article of food in Peru (v. Humboldt), might, no doubt, be successfully culti- 
vated in the Himalayas. 
Salvadora, which is placed in this order by Jussieu, but by Bartling in Myrsinee, is 
a genus common to India, Persia, and Arabia; and the same species, S. persica, 
occurs in the Circars, N. of India, and the Persian Gulf; but along with this, another 
species is found on the banks of the Jumna, and from Delhi to Saharunpore. This is 
S. indica, nob., jal of the Hindoos, irak-hindee of Persian authors, who also give this 
tree the name of miswak or toothbrush-tree: the leaves are called ra-suna, resemble 
those of the lanceolate Senna, and are, like them, of a purgative natute; the fruit 
is called peel and pinjoo. 1 know not if it be the same as that brought from Hansi, 
and sold in the Delhi bazar as an edible fruit, under the name of peeloo. S. persica is 
called khurjal in N. India, arak and irak in works on Materia Medica. The bark of 
the root is acrid, and raises blisters (Roxb.); a decoction of the bark of the stem is 
considered tonic, and the red berries are said to be edible. 
The herbaceous parts of many of this family, as spinage, &c. being insipid and 
mucilaginous, have been used as vegetable food in many parts of the world; so, 
in India, are several species of Chenopodium (bhutwa, &c.) Beta bengalensis (palung 
and paluk), Spinacia tetrandra (isfanakh), and also Basella rubra (poee). The roots of 
beet and mangel-wurzul also afford food: the successful extraction of sugar from 
the former, is one of the triumphs of science. The seed of some are considered 
aromatic and stimulant, as Chenopodium Botrys, and Ambrosoides. C.vulvaria is said 
by M. Chevalier to exhale ammonia during the whole of its existencg. (Lindley. Nat. 
Ord. p. 168.) The loose cellular texture of many of this family is supposed to favour 
the absorption and deposition of soda in their substance, when growing in the vicinity 
_of the sea; and this in such considerable quantities, as to afford, by the incineration of 
several species of Salsola, Salicornia, Sueda, &c., the chief supply of the barilla of 
commerce on the coasts of Spain, the S. of France, and of Arabia. Dr. Roxburgh 
has already suggested (Flor. Ind. 2. p. 62), that Salicornia indica and brachiata, with 
Salsola nudiflora, are so abundant on the coasts of India, as to be able to supply 
barilla sufficient to make soap and glass for the whole world. A coarse kind of barilla 
is procurable in Indian bazars, under the name sejjee muttee (soda-earth.) This is 
procured by the incineration of plants (unknown) growing not in the neighbourhood of 
the sea, but on the shores of the salt lakes scattered through the Indian deserts. It 
seems worthy of inquiry, whether the Sa/sola, so abundant on the banks of the Jumna, 
would yield soda, and also, whether it would be possible to grow any of these soda- 
secreting plants in the saline and barren country to its westward, where nothing else 
will now grow. 
138. PHYTOLACCEZ. 
This is a small order, separated from Chenopodee, and as Dr. Lindley states, natives of 
-either America, within or, without the tropics, Africa, and India; in the latter, we 
find 
