298 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



black-currants, with flavour that seems a mixture of 

 sweetness and spice. The berries of the Ugni make an 

 excellent tart ; or the juice may be expressed and mixed 

 with water, for a delicious cool drink, with odour of rose- 

 mary; or they may be made into jam. So penetrating is 

 the aroma, that it clings to the fingers after gathering. 



THE MANGO (Mangifera Indica). 



THE Mango is essentially a tropical fruit, and considered 

 one of the very finest in the world. In form it is some- 

 what apple-like, but more kidney-shaped : usually about 

 two inches in diameter, very variable in colour and 

 substance, with, in the heart, a large curiously flattened 

 stone, the surface of which is covered with fibrous 

 filaments. The taste is sweet and luscious, but when 

 the fruit is over-ripe, strongly suggestive of turpentine. 

 It is produced by a tree of thirty or forty feet in height, 

 branchless till taller than a man, then affording a pecu- 

 liarly grateful shade. The leaves are large, lanceolate, 

 smooth and shining, and evolve a sweet resinous odour. 

 The flowers, small individually, and in colour reddish 

 white or yellow, come out in clusters of such a character 

 as to render the tree, when in full bloom, not unlike 

 a Spanish chestnut. The mango has often ripened in 

 England, notably at Chatsworth, Kew, and in the Regent's 

 Park Botanical Gardens. 



