wit** HORTJJS JAMAICENSI9 a$7 



drupe scarlet, one-seeded. Native of Jamaica in dry coppices near the sea, flowering 

 in spring. Sitartz. 



Wiu>-SiNNA. See BarTjadoes Flower-Fence. 

 Wild-Spikenard. Sec Vervain. 



WILD-TAMARIND. MIMOSA. 



Cl. 23, or. 1. Polygamia moneecia. Nat. or. Lomentacete. 

 Gen. char. .SVeCacoons, p. 137. 



arborf.a. tree. 



Acacia arborca maxima non sphiosa, pinnis major ibusjlore albo siliqutt 

 contortacnccineaventriosaclegantissima. Sloane, v. 2, p. 54, t; 182, 

 f. 1, 2. Fruticosa erecta inermis, cortice cinere, flonbus laxe con- 

 globatis, spicis plurhnis cpmosis (erminalibus, foliolis minimis bipiii- 

 natis. Browne, p. 253, M. 9. 



Unarmed, leaves bi-pinnate, pinnas halved, acute, stem athoieous. 

 There are two kinds of this tree, the red and the white, from the colour of their 

 woods, which grow abundantly in most parts of Jamaica, and are considered good 

 timber-trees. They arc lofty spreading trees, with upright trunks, making a very 

 graceful figure ; the red kind has a rough dark-coloured, scaling, bark, the white 

 >moutli and ash-coloured : Swartz describes the red kind as follows " Branches 

 diverging, bent down, smooth; partial leaves twelve- paired ; universal petiole round, 

 striated; ferruginous pubescent; partial petioles also ferruginous; glands roundish, 

 concave, between the petioles ; scalelets bifid, minute, at the base of the partial 

 petioles ; pinnas sixteen or eighteen paired, halted, subsessile, acute, entire, smooth. 

 Spikes pedunclcd, sub-globular, composed of aggregate, sessile, white flowers : 

 peduncles axillary, slender; corolla three times as long as the calyx, with a five- 

 toothed border of a whitish flesh colour ; filaments monadelphous, twice as long as 

 the corolla, legume sub-cvlindric, curved, twisted, red, four or five inches lon<r; 

 valve blood-red within ; seed spherical, shining black." Both these trees make 

 excellent boards, the red especially, which is beautifully grained, and takes so good a 

 palish as to appear like mahogany ; making a very handsome floor. The seeds are 

 oblong, smooth, of a shining black colour, and appear when the pods open and become 

 twisted, forming a beautiful contrast to its fine scarlet colour inside. Both these 

 trees grow to the same size, and havemuJi the same appearance, but the flowers of the 

 white kind are yellow ; the pods flat, jointed, twisted, and the seeds are hard, glossy, 

 half white and half blue, making very beautiful beads. The foliage of the white is 

 more dense than that of the red, and the timber is neither so hard nor so durable as 

 the other. The leaflets of the white kind are broader and larger than those of 

 the red and very differently shaped, being in the form of little, round-cornered parralel- 

 lograms with a diagonal nerve, by which they are attached at one corner to the 

 common pedicel ; the largest nearly half an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide 

 from twelve to fourteen pairs ; the pairs at the point and base are smaller, artd of an 

 ovate figure. The leaflets of the red are one third more in the number of pairs on the 

 Vol. II. P p same 



