358 CASVAUINE^. 



Australia it is called the swamp oak. Dr, Bennett {Gather- 

 ings of a Naturalist in Atcstralia) remarks: -** Their sombre 

 appearance causes them to be planted in cemeteries, where their 

 branches give out a mournful sighing sounds as the breeze 

 passes over them, waving at the same time their gloomy hearse- 

 like plumes." The wood from its red colour is called in the 

 colonies Beef-wood^ and is much used for fuel^ and as a 

 timber on account of its hardness. The bark is astringent, 

 and the ashes of the tree yield a quantity of alkali. The 

 bark is used by the Madras fishermen for dyeing their 



nets. Rumphius notices the use of a decoction of the hark 

 for a bath in Beri-beri, and of a decoction of the leaves in 

 colic. The pounded seeds, he says, are used as a plaster m 

 headache, « 



According to Corre and Lejanne {Mat. Med. et Tox. Colon.), 

 the bark contains one-fifth of its weight of tannin and one- 

 twelfth of Casuarine, resin, and colouring matter* A decoction, 

 extract, tincture and syrup are used by the French in Tahiti, 

 Cochin-China, and the Antilles as an astringent. We have 

 observed that the tree yields an inferior sort of gum, not likely 

 to be of much value on account of its deep colour and insolubi- 

 lity in water. 



Description. — Bark never very thick, brittle, breaking 



with a coarse fibrous fracture, substance very hard, fibrous, 

 and of a pink colour ; internal surface striated ; external surface 

 covered with a scabrous grey suber, readily separating m 

 flakes, and displaying a thin brown suberous layer closely 

 adhering to the liber ; taste strongly astringent ; odour not 

 peculiar. 



Cfiemical composition. — The bark yielded 18'3 per cent, of 

 tannic acid, giving a blue-black precipitate with ferric salts, 

 and a bulky precipitate with gelatine. The alcoholic extract 

 contained no alkaloidal principle, but a very small quantity of a 

 crystalline neutral principle was shaken out of the watery 



solution of the extract by ether ; it was not coloured by strong 

 mcids: 



