‘ 
_ mostly exuding in the hot weather. It forms tears and 
— 
. B50 : LEGUMINOSZ. 
Prosopis spicigera.—The gum, which is unusually 
friable, occurs in small angular fragments of a yellowish colour, 
more or less deep, sometimes in large ovoid tears about two 
inches long, of an amber colour internally, but having a frosted 
or candied appearance externally from thé presence of numerous 
minute cracks which cause the tears to crumble under pressure. 
With water it forms a rather dark coloured tasteless mucilage — 
of about the same viscosity as gum arabic. The solution is 
precipitated by the normal acetate of lead and gelatinized by 
the basic acetate, also by ferric chloride, borax and alkaline 
silicates. It rather freely reduces Fehling’s solution. This is 
a valuable gum, and appears to resemble, except in its behavi- 
our to reagents, the Mezquite gum of Mexico and Texas, which ~ 
is now coming into use in America. 
Acacia Farnesiana yields gum trod in the form of | 
spheroidal tears and stalactiform masses ranging in colour _ 
from pale yellow to dark-reddish brown. The gum collected 
in the neighbourhood of Bombay and at Poona in the Deccan 
is only slightly soluble. On stirring up with water it partially — 
dissolves, but after remaining a short time undisturbed it 
gelatinizes, The strained mucilage is precipitated or gelati- 
nized by neutral and basic acetate of lead, perchloride of iron, 
and silicate of soda, but not by borax. It slightly reduces 
Fehling’s solution. 
Under a high power of the microscope, the gum is seen to 
be thickly interwoven with the minute hyphew and fructifica- 
tions of a fungus probably belonging to the Ascomycetes. — 
The fungus is composed of a brown parenchyma containing 
oil globules, and bearing oval-shaped gonidia divided into two 
cells by a transverse septum. The gonidia are supported on 
hyaline stems (sterigmata) arising from the hyphe. Debris .— 
of cells containing monoclinic crystals and interwoven with — 
fungi are occasionally met with. 
Acacia arabica fields an abundant supply of gum, 4 
masses, the latter sometings of ines size when 
