**HRmc HORTUS JAM AIC EN SIS. $ 



Thorny; leaves bigemminate, blunt. 

 This is a small tree, from seven to ten feet in height; the trunk is branched and un- 

 armed ; branches sub-divided, commonly unarmed, ash-coloured, wrinkled; stipvfles 

 none. Petiole bifid, each part terminated by two, sometimes, but rarely, by four 

 leaflets; leaflets wedge- shaped, ovate, blunt, entire, a little oblique, nerved, smooth ; 

 glands at the division of the petiole, and between the pinnas ; peduncles axillary and 

 "lateral, clustered, scattered, terminated by a head of flowers ; corolla whitish ; filaments 

 monadclphous, three times as long as the corolla, capillary, purplish; anthers minute, 

 simple; gernr oblong, compressed, biood-red; style awl-shaped ; stigma simple ; le- 

 gume compressed, twisted; seeds five or six, compressed a little, shining, black, 

 (astened by a scarlet membrane. S'rr. Sloane observes that the peas are eaten by goats 

 in a scarcity of other food. The bark is very astringent, and used in lotions and fo- 

 mentations; it is bitterish, and in powder, or decoction, used as a fomentation, cures 

 old ulcers, and restores due tone to the parts when more than usually relaxed in the 

 other sex ; but such applications, Browne observes, should be used with great caution, 

 and only at particular tunes ; he calls it the Hack-bead shrub ; and it is also called Bar- 

 bun/ thorn ; the wood steeped in water yields a beautiful red tincture, which might be 

 useful in dying. It is easily propagated by seeds or cuttings. 



This tree is so called in Jamaica for its being a sovereign remedy for the stone, gravel, 

 and difficulty of making urine; it is also good in obstructions of the liver and spleen. 

 The use of it was discovered to our traders to the main continent of America, where a 

 Spanish bishop did such wonders with it for the gravel and stone, that, being willing 

 it shou'd be known for a public benefit of mankind, he shewed the shrub cr tree to 

 some of our merchants, who soon found the same tree in Jamaica, but chiefly about St. 

 Jatjo de la Vega, lor which reason it is believed the Spaniards planted them ; for if you 

 go above four or five miles from that town, you will hardly meet with one of these trees 

 throughout the island.* It has a mossy flower, that smells as sweet as die English May 

 or hawthorn; is a large shrub, with little roundish leaves; the whole plant grows al- 

 most like an English maple, but is full of small prickles; its leaves glassy, small, and 

 round; its flowers are like the fingrigo ; its fruit is a small long red pod, which when 

 ripe opens of itself, turning inside out, curling, and twisting, shewing a black bean, 

 with a white poppy down substance at one end, in the shape of a kidney. Upon this 

 account, said the Spanish bishop, nature points out the use of this plant ; the bean it- 

 self is in shape of the kidnev, and that white poppy substance about it signifies the fat 

 of the kidnev. It is the bark which is chiefly used : When decocted, it smells like new 

 wort, but a little bitterish, of which they must drink plentifully-, it worketh by urine. 

 I have often given it with good success ; but I am of opinion the fruit would be found 

 to be prevalent if experienced, for the bark is so used, that it is now rare to meet with 

 a tree that hath not been barked. Barhara, p. 111. 



See Cacoons Cashaw Gum- Arabic Inga-Tree Sensitive Plant Wild Ta- 

 marind. 



A 2 NETTLES. 



* This is still the case. In tfce vicinity of Spini-h Town they grow plentifully in most hedges, ami become 

 beautiful little trees; very seldom to be found with prickles; perhaps, being exotic, they may have changed 

 tacir habit in this respect, since the tinjf of Barhara. Swartz observes they were coinmtily unarmed. 



