2 THE PLANT WORLD 



tree of the Calingag is like that of the canela so that between the two 

 there is no more difference than that the canela is fine and the Calin- 

 gag of the mountain. But, in reality, of a truth, the canela, I speak of 

 the Calingag, is canela, although coarse, and has the effects of the gen- 

 uine and fine." Anyone should certainly be able to recognize these 

 two varieties on first sight. 



Mercado was evidently a man of broad sympathies and philosox)hic 

 tendencies. Witness the following, and may it be remembered by our 

 own tree-carvers. " For an unfortunate tree we hold the Calumi^ang ; 

 after having received benefits from its branches and leaves, men despise 

 it. I say this because if the sun is hot they use the shade of the Cal- 

 umpang, if it rains they do the same, if they are hungry beneath it 

 they eat and the recompense that it finds from the passers by is that 

 all hack its trunk, as if it were a crime to have comforted with its 

 branches the thankless ones who come to use them when exhausted by 

 hunger or weariness or because the skies are threatening or too 

 intense." 



In the same musing strain he speaks of Piftosporum : " There are 

 some things which have a bad face and good works and others the con- 

 trary. And also there are others which are throughout good or bad. 

 This Mamalis is beautiful inasmuch as it puts out its branches each 

 one like a palm. Now we do not know whether it is beautiful in its 

 properties ; that depends on how one wishes to use it ; because the 

 bark of the root which looks towards the east makes a good i)laster for 

 stomach-ache," but causes great injury to certain persons. Again Bar- 

 leria has flowers provided with numerous tiny, hurtful spines. " Of 

 them we might say that they have good face and bad works, like some 

 women." 



The peculiar power, mentioned above, of the parts of the plant 

 which face the rising sun is repeatedly referred to, and to the same 

 class of facts belongs this, that the root of Smilax China, "which God 

 created here," plucked when the moon is on the increase, is an even 

 better remedy for pains, tumors, etc., than the celebrated Palo de 

 China, which "rots the bones." Let them that do not believe this 

 " take from the sepulchre one who has been cured by the Palo de China 

 and they shall see all his bones rotted." 



A marvelous example of magic attributes is contained in the story 

 of a French monk who in 1658 cured a native supjiosed to be suffering 

 from dropsy, by administering the powdered fruits of Qnisqualis until 

 he was relieved of a worm " 26 yards long and of the thickness of a 

 toston (shilling), all tubular like a reed or more like a cane," Seeing 

 that he was still not well, the same remedy Avas continued until the 

 appearance of a second parasite 14 yards long. " From this case we 



