540 LEGUMINOS 4. 
Description, Uses, &c.—The plant is a gigantic 
climbing shrub, remarkable for its legumes, which are several — 
feet long, 4 to5 inches broad; and surrounded with & thick, 4 
very firm, polished entire rim, which is found to remain like a 
picture-frame when the less durable jointed body of the legume 
has disappeared. The joints are 10 to 80, one-secded, ligneons, 
swelled in the centre, transversely furrowed, greenish ash- 
colour when ripe.. The seeds are more or less heart-shaped, 
flattened, about 2 inches in diameter, with a shining brown. 
_testa, which is 1-16th of an inch thick, and very tough and 
horny. It encloses two large, equdl cotyledons which adhere 
to it. The radicle is patelliform, and lodged at the umbilicus 
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of the seed. The substance of the cotyledons is white and a 
insipid. When a thin section is cut and a drop of water placed 
upon it, the water immediately becomes milky, and the opacity _ 
of the section is much diminished. Under the microscope this — 
~ is seen to be due to the escape of oil globules and granular q 
matter from their containing cells. The properties of the seeds — 
do not appear to have been tested in Kuropean practice; among — 
the natives they have the reputation of being emetic, and a — 
paste prepared from them is applied to glandular swellings. — 
Dalzell and Gibson (Bombay Flora, Part I -y px 84), say:— 2 
‘© An infusion of the spongy fibres of the trunk is used with 2 
advantage for various affections of the skin in the Philippines, — 
where it is called ‘Gogo’ (Adams) ; the seeds are eaten roasted 4 
in Soonda.” Horsfield in his list of Javanese plants states — 
_ that this plantis used as an emetic by the Javanese, but he does — 
"not say which part of the plant is employed. Ainslie notices it — 
under its Javanese name of Gandoo, and remarks that it is the — 
Mahapus-woela of the Cingalese, and the Faba marina of Rum- | 
phius. The Lepchas and other hill tribes use the seeds as & 
soap to wash their hair, and asa food after they have been : 
a 
roasted and soaked in water. 
; e yellow, viscid oil, which was not rendered clear by h 
Prannt gives the yield at about 80 per cent.) 
__ Chemical composition.—The seeds have been examined by 
Moss (1887), who found 7:03 per. cent. of a neutral, turbid, 
