12 HORTUS JAMAICENSiS. aloes 



and smell ; but, pcrhn])s, the crudity and coldness of their juice might make them a 

 sort of poison to the stomach ill this climate, where even melons and cucumbers^ not 

 duly corrected, will sonietimes convulse it. The wood of this tree is so extremely lighi 

 that it is commonly used by way of cork to stop jugs, bottles, and casks ; and it makes 

 excellent lloats for fishing nets.^ -Long, p. 832. 



See CiiERiMOLA Custard-apple Soltv and sweet sops, 



AlLTGATOR-WOOD -yC(? MUSKWOOD. 



Allspice See Plwenta. 



ALOES. ALOE. 



Cl. 6, OR. \. Hexandriamonogi/nia. Nat. or. Liliacccvl 

 The derivation of this name is uncertain. 



Gen. CHAR. No cdlyx ; corolla one-petalled, six-cleft, erect- and oblong, the -tube 

 gibbous, the border spreading and small, with a nectary-bearing bottom ; the sta- 

 mens are subulaled filaments, rather surpassing the corolla in length, and inserted 

 into the receptacle; the anthers are oblong and incumbent; the pistillum has an o- 

 vate germen, style simple the length of the stamens, stigma obtuse trifid; the peri, 

 carpium is an oblong capsule, three-furrowed, three-celled, and three-vah'ed ; the 

 seeds are many and angular. There are a great number of species and varieties of the 

 aloe, and it is said the perfoliata, the most useful, was brought here from Bermudas. 

 The medical substance known by the name of aloes is the inspissated juice of the 

 barbadensis and succotrina, which are varieties of the species 



PERFOLL\TA, 



Aloe dioscorid. et alicrum, ^c. Sloane, v. 1, p. 2-I-5. Fcliis turgidis 

 ciliato dentatis purpurascentibus, scapo Jiorifero assurgenti spicato. 

 Browne, 197. Sempervive. Barham, 172. 



1 Var. the barbadensis, has toothed upright succulent subulate leaves, flowers 

 yellow, hanging down in a thyrse. 



2 Var. the succotrina, has leaves very long and narro^v, thorny at the edge, the 

 flowers in spikes. 



1. The leaves of the Barbadoes aloe are about four inches broad at their base, and 

 nearly two inches thick, they have a few indentures on their edges, are of a sea-green 

 colour, and, when young, are spotted with wliite. The flower stem risci near three 

 feet high, and the flowers stand in a slender loose spike, with very short peduncles, 

 and hang downwards; they are of a binght yellow colour, and tlie stamens stand out 

 beyond the tube. 



Of the cultivation and preparation of hepatic or Barbadoes aloes we have the follow- 

 ing account, by Millington, in the London Medical Journal, vol. 8. art. S. 



The lands in the vicinity of the sea, that is, from two to three miles, which are ra- 

 ther subject to drought than otherwise, and are so strong and shallovv as not to admit of 

 the planting of sugar canes with any prospect of success, are generally found to answer 



best 



