32 MEDICAL BOTANY. 
. 
form a four or five-cleft corolla. Stamens varying in number, ten to two hundred. Legume continuous, juiceless, 
two-valved. Shrubs or trees. Thorns stipular, scattered or none. Flowers yellow, white, or rarely red, capitate or 
spiked. (De Candolle.) 
Srecir. Cuar.—A tree sometimes attaining the height of forty feet, usually smaller. 
short. Branches and petioles pubescent. Leaves bipinnate, with four to six pairs of pime, 
first and between the last pairs. Leaflets ten to twenty pairs, oblong, 
fragrant, in oblong, globose heads, stalked, axillary, and subternate. 
compressed, contracted on both sutures between each seed. 
This species of Acacia is a native of Egypt, Senegal, Arabia, and India. Along with others, it affords the article 
known as Gum Arabic. By Ehrenberg it is considered to be a variety of the A. vera. The fruit of it is employed as 
a tanning and dyeing agent in the East; it is called bablah. 
Gum Arabic exudes in the form of tears, by natural or artificial fissures. 
has different appellations according to its origin. It is nutritious and demulcent 
Spines in pairs, usually 
with a gland between the 
linear, minute, smooth. Flowers yellow, 
Legume stalked, moniliform, long and curved, 
The qualities of it are various, and it 
. 
Piate XXIII—Represents the plant in flower, and an enlarged flower and fruit. 
ACACIA CATECHU. 
WILLDENOW. 
Mimosa catecuv.—Linneus. 
Sex. Syst.—Polygamia, Moncecia. 
Srecir. Cnar.—A tree from fifteen to twenty or thirty feet high, with hard and heavy wood, of which the interior 
is of a dark red or brownish colour, and the sap-wood white. Branches with stipulary thorns. Leaves bipinnate. 
_ Pinne ten to fifteen pairs. Leaflets thirty to fifty pairs, linear, oblong, unequal and auriculed on the under side, with 
one large urceolate gland below the lowest pair of pinne, and smaller ones between the second to fourth terminal ones. 
Inflorescence a spike, one to three together in the axille of the leaves. Flowers numerous, white. Calyx downy, 
five-fid. Petals united into a five-fid corolla, Stamens numerous, distinct, double the length of the corolla. (The 
flower has a yellow appearance from the numerous yellow anthers.) Ovary shortly stipitate. Style the length of the 
Stamens. Legumes straight, thin, flat, and smoo 
th, with about four to six seeds. (Royle, from Roxburgh.) 
This plant is a native of various 
parts of India; the drug obtained from it, under the idea that it was an earth, wr 
came from Japan, was called Terra Japonica. Mr. Kerr first presented an account of the plant from which it is obtained, 
and the mode of extracting the d 
rug; his paper is contained in the Medical Observations and Inquiries for pote 
Dr. Macfadyen states in his Flora Jamaicensis that the plant has been introduced into Jamaica, and that in som 
districts it has been planted to form fence 
8, receiving, incorrectly, the name of the Jerusalem Thorn. the 
ay Ue the extraction of Catechu, the inner heart-wood, duramen, is cut into chips and boiled in earthen io 
liquor being subsequently strained and evaporated. When soft, the extract is made into cakes usually of a round 0 
quadrangular form. It is called Kutch. It is not the only article, however, known as Catechu; for an — 
several kinds, we refer to Pereira’s Materia Medica, which contains a very full chapter on the subject. 
Catechu contains tannin and a pecul 
: iar substance, common in the several varieties of the drug, called catechine. 
The tannin affords greenish-black precipitates with the salts of iron. 
ae Catechu is a valuable astringent ; it may be used in all cases where astringents are proper. The mode of exhibition 
1s In powder, infusion, and tincture. 
It enters into the composition of some compound preparations. 
PLATE XXIV.—Represents the plant in Slower, and the enlarged flower and fruit. 
