VIII.-PAI-T'AN TREE. 



{Dalbergia hupeana, Hance.) 

 (With Plate.) 



This is a treo of moderate size, rarely attaining 50 feet in height, 

 which is common in the central provinces of China, being recorded 

 from Szechwan, Hupeh, Kiangsu, and Chekiang. It is essentially 

 a tree of the plains and low hills, and is never met with in the 

 inoiintaiu forests. It is now usually seen planted along road-sides 

 and around villages. 



Its wood IS hard and durable and is used for purposes where 

 strength and elasticity are required, as in the making of rammers 

 for oil-presses, tool handles, wheel-spokes, and blocks and pulleys. 

 A pulley made of this wood, sent by me from Ichang, is now in 

 the Museum at Kew, where there are also specimens of the timber 

 forwarded from Ningpo by Consul Cooper. 



The ti-ee is known in Hupeh as the t\in tree, and at Ningpo as 

 the pai-Van. The fan tree has been familiar to the Chinese from 

 the earliest times,'" and is frequently mentioned in their classical 

 writings. Chariots made of its wood were employed in the 

 famous battle of Mu- Ye, which occurred in B.C. 1122. Another 

 early allusion refers to its use in making the naves of wheels. It 

 is figured in the illustrated Chinese Botany, the Chih Wu-Ming, 

 XXXV. 21 ; and the author of the great Chinese Herbal, the Pen- 

 Ts'ao Kang JJ>f, describes it as a tree with a finely-veined hard 

 wood and with leaves resembling those of Sophora Japonica. 

 European translators of the Chinese Classics have erroneously 

 identified this tree with Sandalwood, which is called Tan-hsiang, 

 and has ahvays been an import into China. 



The plate is reproduced from Hooker's Icones Plantarum 

 (t. 1968), which may be referred to for botanical details. 



Augustine Henry. 



IX.-POTTERY TREES. 



Nothing is, perhaps, more remarkable than the empirical 

 knowledge possessed by uncivilised peoples of the properties, 

 useful or otherwise, of the vegetation amongst which they live. 



One of the most curious is the use by the Brazilian aborigmes 

 of the ashes of the bark of a tree in the manufacture of a rude 

 pottery. This was first pointed out by Aublet, and is the subject 

 of a note by the well-known traveller, the late R. Spruce, A.L.S., 

 whose acute observation nothing escaped, in the Kew Journal of 

 Botany, 1850, p. 73. 



Apparently the alluvial clay used in making the native pottery 

 is incapable without additional silica of producing a body of 

 sufficient hardness when fired for practical purposes. But 

 ordinary sources of silica are not available. The bark of the 

 Pottery tree appears to yield what is wanted. 



Sotanieon Sinieum^M, 376. CSkanffkat, 1892.) 



