cuy 



HORTUS JAMAICENSI&. 



GUM TREE. HIPPOMANE. 



Cl. 21, OR. 8. Monoecia mojudelphia. Nat. OR. Tricoccx. 



This generic name is derived from the Greek name Of a plant supposed ta. maks; 

 horses furious. 



Gen. char. Male flowers in a terminating; anient; the calyx one-leafed, roundish, 

 bellynig ; with the month couvergini^, emarginate ; there is no corolla; the sta- 

 men is a single filiform filament, twice as long as tiie calj's ; anthers four, round- 

 ish, fixed crosswise to the sides of the Slameat towards the tip. The female 



' flower solitary, terminating, ia- the same plant ; calyx a three-leaved perianth, 

 withering ; leadets roundish, concave, blui^, converging ; there is no corolla ; 

 the pistil is an ovate large germ, style very short, stigma slightly seven-cleft, 

 sharp, reflex ; the pericarp a globular drupe, very large, one-celled, crowned 

 with the permanent stigmas, or a tricoccous capsule ; the seed a woody irregular 

 nut, acuminate, excavated with little pits, seven-celled, seven-valved ; kernels 

 solitary, roundisli. Tiiere are three species, two of which are natives of Jairiaica. 



BIQLANDULOSA. 



BIGLANDULAR. 



Arbor cum, foliis elHpticis glabris^ petiolis biglandidis^ Jloribus spica-' 

 tis. Browne, p. 338^ . 



Leaves o-rate-oblong, big'andular at the "base. 

 This tree grove's from twenty to fifty feet high, with an even brownish ash-coloured 

 bavji. Leaves on young trees frequently a foot long, but on older ones shorter ; they 

 are blunt, ere n ate -serrate, of a firm substance and bright green ; spikes terminating 

 and lateral, clustered, rather to be called aments. A single amcnt of male flowers, at 

 the beginning of the flowering time springs among other small ones, flowers, and falls ; 

 thick scales like glands cover the ameat, commonly- a pair opposite to another pair, 

 ovate, thick, pressed close, adnate; perianth from the sinus of two scales, tubular, 

 irregularly four-vleft, blood-red : filaments two, connate at the base, reflex, longer 

 than the calyx, blood-red ; anthers twiir, open i.t the upper edge ; pollen yellow, 

 with the atoms oblong, when -viewed with a glass appearing to have two pellucid streaks. 

 After almost a month, the first araent falling aUd leaving a scar, the snnatler aments of 

 the base are elongated and flower, producing male flowers at the top, and female 

 flowers below. The females have two scales to each flower, embracing the germ. 

 Calyx trifid, two segments-above the scales at the sides, the other behind ; germ ovate, 

 .fastened to the ament behind ;. style three-parted ; stigmas thick, simple ; capsule ob- 

 long, slightly three-cornered, at length tricoccous, small, -three-cejled, three- vatved j 

 seeds orfaiculate, smooth, solitary. Sk'. 



All the parts of this tree abouivd with a caustic lac or milk, of a liirht green transpa- 

 rent colour, which issues plentifully from a wound or fractuie, of a dirty opake colour, 

 and of little smell ; which Browne observes was generally used in boiiing-house lamps 

 in ever}' part of the country where it grew ; and that it was also used for bird-lime, 

 which purpose it answered exttemely well. It blossoms in the latter end of January 

 and beginning of February, and is in some places called parrot-gum tree, wiiich has 

 been thought a different plant, owing to the difference in the leaves and appearance 

 ef (Jie trees in its different stages, the smallness of the- leaves being the effect of age j 

 ' A a d iuid 



