LIGNUM NEPHRITICUM — SAFFOKD. 291 



Specimens of narra wood from the Province of Cagayan, Island 

 of Luzon, were obtained by the writer from the newly installed wood 

 collection in the United States National Museum. The sapwood, 

 beautifully flesh tinted, with pale, red lines of growth, and with 

 large, conspicuous pores, bears little resemblance to that of Eysen- 

 hardtia but does resemble the palutn indianum figured by Johan 

 Bauhin. Moreover, it is almost as soft as cedar and its grain is more 

 or less twisted, while the dark-colored heartwood of Eysenhardtia 

 is hard, like lignum-vitse, and its grain is close and straight. This 

 wood had formed part of the Philippine collection at the St. Louis 

 Exposition in 190i, where it had been exhibited as a valuable 

 timber and cabinet wood. No notes on the fluorescence of its in- 

 fusion accompanied the specimens, nor any indication that the wood 

 is used medicinally. On placing a few chips of the wood in or- 

 dinary tap water the latter soon became tinged a yellow color, which 

 deepened at length to orange, displajang a most beautiful fluores- 

 cence hardly to be distinguished from that of Eysenhardtia wood. 

 At the request of the writer a cup was turned from this wood by Mr. 

 James B. Conner, of the United States Department of Agriculture ; 

 and water, when allowed to stand in this cup, showed the same 

 color eilects as those described by Bauhin. Like the water in his 

 cups the infusion assumed in a short time " a wonderful blue and 

 yellow color, and when held up against the light beautifully resem- 

 bled the varying color of the opal, giving forth reflections, as in that 

 gem, of fiery yellow, bright red, glowing purple, and sea green most 

 wonderful to behold." This infusion as seen in a glass flask, to- 

 gether with the cup described above, is shown on plate 1 (opp. p. 271), 

 reproduced from a water-color di^wing by Mrs. R. E. Gamble. 



BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION. 



The genus Pterocarpus, belonging to the Leguminosse, bears little 

 resemblance to Eysenhardtia, although, as in that genus, the fruit 

 is an indehiscent one-seeded pod, and the leaves are pinnately com- 

 pound with large leaflets alternate or opposite, but without stipels. 

 The yellow, papilionaceous flowers are borne in panicled racemes 

 and- the pedicels are jointed at the apex. The turbinate, or top- 

 shaped, calyx curved before opening, bears 5 short teeth, 2 above and 

 o below. The exserted petals are narrowed at the base into long, 

 slender claws, and the broad standard and wings are crisped, or 

 frilled, around the margin, while the keel is linear. The androecium 

 is diadelphous, consisting of 1 free stamen and 9 stamens united into 

 a sheath which is slit either above .and below or only above. The 

 2-ovuled ovary borne on a short stalk aiid bearing an incurved style 



