140 LEGUMINOS.E. 



Beans, and Lentils ; others supply valuable fodder for 

 cattle, as Clover, Vetches, and Lucerne ; Eosewood, Log- 

 wood, and Acacia offer examples of timber ; Gum 

 Arabic, Catechu, Senna, Kino, Liquorice, Balsam of Tolu, 

 and Tamarinds, are the products of other species ; Tonka 

 Bean and Balsam of Peru are well-known perfumes ; 

 several species of Indigofera afford the valuable article 

 of commerce, Indigo ; and in Persia and Bokhara, a 

 tree called Gamers Thorn produces abundance of Manna, 

 which in those countries is an important article of food. 

 Other species possess medicinal properties of various 

 kinds ; not a few are poisonous ; and it is worthy of 

 remark that some, the seeds of which are eminently 

 nutritious, have properties of an opposite nature residing 

 in other parts of the plant. The roots of the Kidney 

 Bean, for instance, are dangerously narcotic. The dry 

 pulp which encloses the seeds of the Carob-tree is by 

 some supposed to have been the food of John the Bap- 

 tist in the wilderness, on which account it is called 

 Locust-tree, and St. John's Bread. The Locust-trees 

 of America (different from the eastern tree) attain an 

 immense size. Martins represents a scene in Brazil, 

 where some trees of this kind occurred of such enormous 

 dimensions, that 15 Indians with outstretched arms 

 could only just embrace one of them. At the bottom 

 they were 84 feet in circumference, and 60 feet where 

 the boles became cylindrical. According to one esti- 

 mate, they were 2,052 years old, while another carried 

 it up to 4,104. Many plants belonging to the Mimosa 

 group display peculiar irritability in their pinnate 

 leaves. This is particularly the case with M. sensitwa 

 and M. pudica, which are commonly called Sensitive 

 plants. Almost all the plants of the order which have 

 compound leaves fold them together during the nights. 

 In some foreign species of Leguminosae the legume loses 

 its characteristic form, and assumes the appearance of 

 a drupe, the papilionaceous form of the flower remain- 

 ing ; in others the petals lose the papilionaceous arrange- 



