Amentacea.] THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 345 
the puncture of Cynips Quercus folii on Quercus infectoria, a native of Asia Minor, 
Armenia, and Kurdistan. Q. Tex and Cerris afford inferior galls. The cupules of the 
glands of Q. Aegilops, called velonia and velani (a corruption of BwAwy:), and velaneda by 
the modern Greeks, are collected in Ceos, and used for the same purposes. The Kermes 
insect fixes itself upon Q. coccifera, hence called Kermes Oak, a native of the S. of 
Europe and N. of Africa. Q. Ballota, sweet-acorn oak, that probably described in 
Persian works under the names shah-bulloot and bulloot-ool-mulik, is a native of Spain, 
N. of Africa, and of parts of Greece ; this having acorns free from tannin, has been 
long used as food by the inhabitants of the above countries. It might very probably, 
as well as the Cork-tree (Q. Suber), a native of the hot parts of Spain and France, 
be naturalised in the plains of Northern India; where Q. incana, from elevations 
of 5,000 to 7,000 feet in the Himalayas, is perfectly at home. The acorns of this 
species are sold in bazars under the name bulloot, being used by the natives in medicine. 
_ The nuts of others of the Amentacee are used for food, as Spanish chestnuts, the beech 
and hazel-nut: the first contain sugar, and the two latter much oil, for which they 
are often subjected to expression. The nuts of the hazel, abundant in the Himalayas, 
may be met with in bazars under the name binduk or jinduk. An edible nut is 
afforded by the Indian chestnut, Castanea indica, Roxb., a native of the mountains 
of Silhet, where it is called nikari. 
The black birch, Betula nigra, of N. America, is celebrated for the hardness of its 
timber; the astringent bark is used in tanning, and the leaves for dyeing yellow 
in Lapland. JB. nana yields a vegetable wax, like Myrica Gale. The bark of B. alba, 
reduced to powder, as well as the wood of the black poplar, is eaten by the inhabitants 
of Kamtschatka, beaten up with the ova of the sturgeon; the sap of this species, as of 
Alnus glutinosa, is fermentible ; the catkins of the latter are employed in tanning. The 
bark of Betula Bhojputtra is well known for serving as a substitute for writing-paper, 
and for wrapping hooqqa-snakes. Cattle are fed on the leaves of Populus nigra, and 
the coma of the seeds is employed for making paper. That of the Himalayan P. ciliata, 
being particularly abundant, might be employed for the same purpose. Some of the 
poplars, like the Balsamiflue (natives of Java, the Levant, and N. America), secrete a 
fragrant gum-resin, as P. nigra, P. nana, and P. balsamifera, a native of N. America and 
Siberia. Betula resinifera, nob., has its leaves covered with numerous resinous dots. 
Salix egyptiaca, khilaf-bulkhee of the Arabs, Calif or Egyptian willow, called in Persia 
and in the gardens of Northern India, bed-mooshk, has a fragrant water distilled from 
its catkins. A kind of manna, called bed-khisht, is said, in Persian works, to be collected 
off a species of willow in Persian Khorassan. 
As species of all the above genera exist in the Himalayas, it becomes an important 
subject of inquiry, whether some would not yield products now forming articles of 
commerce in other parts of the world: the above detail has therefore been intro- 
duced. Some of the most useful species of other countries might, no doubt, be 
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