1870.] BULGER — ON VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS. 67 



many of them, and found them to vary from one to two grains. 

 The native goldsmiths are said to make an adhesive compound 

 from them, which is employed in the finer work of jewellery. 

 Several parts of the plant are applied to various medicinal 

 purposes. The root is used as a substitute for liquorice — hence 

 the English name — and Lunan says that a decoction of the 

 leaves is drunk in the West Indies instead of tea. According to 

 Linnaeus the seeds are very deleterious, but, as the Egyptians use 

 them for food, they can hardly be so injurious as the great 

 botanist has led us to suppose. As a plant, the Ahrus precatorius 

 does not possess much beauty, and the pale-purple flowers are 

 neither gay nor striking. I have not seen it growing very 

 abundantly in India, though I have found it pretty widely 

 distributed in that country, as well as in Burmah. Mr. Gosse 

 says it is a common hedge-climber in Jamaica, and it is doubtless 

 equally plentiful in the other islands of the West Indies. The 

 derivation of the generic name is from ahros (pretty), in 

 allusion, probably, to the beauty of the little seeds ; and Loudon 

 says the specific designation, precatorius, is due to the fact of 

 their being used as beads for rosaries. 



Seed-pod of the Moreton-Bay Chestnut Tree (Castano- 

 spermum Australe Cunn.) — The Gastanospermum Australe, as 

 its English name imports, is an inhabitant of the forests near 

 Moreton Bay, in Australia. It is a handsome tree, belonging to 

 the nat. ord. Legiiminosce, with an abundance of elegant foliage ; 

 and, in the season of bloom, the bright saff"ron-orange papiliona- 

 ceous flowers are very gay. The seeds are large, and, in some 

 slight degree, resemble chestnuts in taste and appearance. They 

 are enclosed in an inflated legume or pod, which is hard and 

 woody in its texture, and of a pale, reddish-brown colour. They 

 are nearly globular in shape, and each pod contains from two to 

 five seeds. Is is said that they furnish an article of food to the 

 natives of the country where they grow, and that Europeans have 

 been known to subsist upon them for some time without any 

 injurious efiects. The tree — the only one of its genus known to 

 science — is very ornamental, and has been successfully cultivated 

 in East Indian gardens, including the famous Lai Bang at Banga- 

 lore. The generic name is compounded from castanea, a chest- 

 nut, and sperma, a seed. 



NiCKAR Berries (seeds of Guilandina honduc H. K.) — 

 Guilandina honduc is a thorny, climbing shrub of the nat. ord. 



