COKOLLIFLOK^. 59 1 



Roupellin grata, a native of Sierra Leone, yields an edible fruit called 

 Cream fruit. 



Aspidosperma excehum, a native of Guiana, is remarkable for its fluted 

 trunk. It is employed for making paddles. 



Alstonia scholaris, has a bitter tonic, and astringent wood. 



Wrightia antidysenterica, — The bark is febrifugal and astringent. It is 

 called Conessi bark. The seeds have similar properties. Both the bark and 

 seeds are much used in India. From W. tinctoria a blue dye resembling 

 Indigo is obtained. The wood of W. coccinea and W. mollis'sima are also 

 employed in India for palanqueens, and by turners. 



Apocynum. — The roots of A. cannabinum and A. androscemifolium are 

 emetic, and slightly purgative. 



Natural Order. 145. Loganiace^. — TheSpigelia or Strych- 

 nos Order. — Shrubs, herbs, or trees. Leaves opposite, entire, 

 with stipules ; the latter, hoAvever, sometimes exist only in the 

 form of a raised line or ridge. Calyx {fig. 464) 4 — 5-parted- Co- 

 rolla {fig. 464) regular, 4—5, or 10-cleft ; (Estivation valvate or 

 convolute. Stamens sometimes anisomerous ; anthers 2-celled ; 

 pollen 3-lobed. Ovary 2, 3, or 4-celled ; style simple below, and 

 with as many divisions above as there are cells to the ovary ; 

 stigma simple. Fruit capsular, or drupaceo-baccate ; placentas 

 axile, ultimately detached. Seeds usually peltate, sometimes 

 winged, with fleshy or cartilaginous albumen. This order is by 

 no means well defined. 



Distribution, Sfc. — Almost all natives of tropical regions. Ex- 

 amples : — Spigelia, Logania, Buddleia, Strychnos. There are 

 25 genera, and about 200 species. 



Properties and Uses. — The plants of this order are almost 

 universally poisonous, acting on the nervous system and pro- 

 ducing frightful convulsions. Some have been used in medicine 

 in torpid or paralytic conditions of the muscular system, and as 

 tonics and anthelmintics, but they require much caution in their 

 employment, and can generally be only given in very small 

 doses. 



Spigelia Marylandica, Carolina Pink, Wormseed, Perennial Wormgrass. 

 The root and leaves are much employed in North America as anthel- 

 mintics. In larger doses they operate as irritant cathartics, and in poisonous 

 doses as narcotics. They are but little used in this country. S. Anthelmia, 

 Demerara Pink Root, is employed for similar purposes iu Guiana and the 

 West Indies. 



Ignatia amara — This plant has been supposed to yield the seeds known 

 as ^t. Ignatius's beans, but according to Bentham, this genus has been im- 

 properly formed, and he believes that these seeds are the produce of a species 

 of Strychnos, perhaps of S. niultiflora. They come to us from the Philippine 

 Islands. They are intensely bitter, and contain the alkaloid Strychnia in 

 even larger proportions than Nux Vomica seeds. Their effects are similar to 

 them. (See A'j/x To/wjca below.) 



Strychnos. — This genus contains some of the most poisonous plants that 

 are known. S. Nux-vot?iica, the Koochla tree, produces Nux Vomica seeds, so 

 well known for their powerfully poisonous effects. They owe their virulent pro- 

 perties to the presence of the alkaloids strychnia and brucia; f of a grain of 

 strychnia has been known to produce death. But the seeds and the alkaloid 

 strychnia have been employed as stimulants of the nervous system in paraly- 

 sis. Nux Vomica seeds are imported into this country from Coromandel, 

 Ceylon, &c. In consequence of the enormous quantities which have been of 

 late years brought to this country, it was thought by some that they were 

 employed in the manufacture of bitter ale on account of their intense bitter- 



