THE SANDAL-WOOD TREE 



SANTALUM 



ALBUM 



Sandal-wood 



286-90; Kew Bull. (add. ser., i.), 1898, 114-22; Rept. Bot. Gard. Saharanpur, 

 1900-1, 11-2; Blackman, Fibres of Hawaiian Islands, 43-4; Trop. Agrist., 

 July 1905, xxv., 232; Dunstan, Imp. Inst. Tech. Repts., 1903, 73; Joret^ Lea. 

 PL dans UAntiq., etc., 1904, ii., 355-6.] 



D.E.F., 



vi., pt. ii., 

 461-7. 



Distribution. 



Boot Parasite. 



Arab 

 Knowledge. 



European 

 Knowledge. 



Modern 

 Indian 

 Knowledge. 



Cultiva- 

 tion. 



Parasitism. 



SANTALUM ALBUM, Linn.; Koxb.,.FZ. Ind., i.,442 ; Talbot, 

 List Trees, etc., 1902, 293 ; Gamble, Man. Ind. Timbs., 585-8 ; Prain, 

 Beng. Plants, 1903, ii., 913-4; Watt, Ind. Art at Delhi, 1903, 14.7-53; 



SANTALACE^E. The Sandal-wood, known in Indian vernaculars as chandan, 

 chandal, sandal, sukhad, gandha, gandada, suket, sukhud, sundel, srigandam, 

 santagu, etc., etc. A small evergreen tree met with in the dry regions 

 of South India (Mysore, Coorg, South Maratha, Hyderabad, Karnatak, the 

 Western Ghats, Nilgiri hills, Coimbatore), and in North India chiefly as 

 a cultivated plant. It affects open forest lands with grass and patches 

 of other trees, usually frequenting red or stony soils. It is a root parasite 

 on a long series of host plants, and hence apparently the difficulties ex- 

 perienced in systematic plantations where provision has not been made 

 for this requirement. On rich soil the plant grows well, but the wood is 

 deficient in odour, consequently inferior commercially. 



History. Sandal-wood has been known in India from the most ancient ot 

 classic times, the Sanskrit authors distinguishing various woods according to colour. 

 Chandana might be spoken of as the collective name for the series, srikhanda the 

 true (or white sandal), and pitachandana the inferior (or yellow sandal), both being 

 derived from Snntalnmi. aiimm. They distinguish two kinds of red sandal or 

 raktachandana, namely rterocnrims suntniiim* (see p. 909) and CwnaitnH'm 

 Sawan (see p. 194). So, in a like manner, these various woods were known 

 to the early Arab traders who visited India and China. Avicenna (ii., 2, 649) 

 gives the medicinal properties of the true sandal. Serapion (De Simpl., 346) 

 describes white, yellow and red sandal, and speaks of the finest qualities coming 

 from Sini (China), an opinion doubtless due to the well-established circumstance 

 that the traders from China were in the habit of treating India as a half-way house 

 and exchanged some of their Chinese wares for Indian products and manu- 

 factures, and on arrival at Arabia all the goods ultimately disposed of came to 

 be spoken of as Chinese, because of the traders having come from China, just as 

 in the further distribution of these self-same wares they received the names of 

 the coast towns of Arabia from which they were finally distributed to Egypt and 

 Europe. [Cf. Paulus Mgineta (Adams, transl. and Comment.), 1847, iii., 448-9.] 



Marco Polo, in the 13th century, makes frequent reference to Red Sanders 

 Wood and to Sandal-wood, and Garcia de Orta (Coll., xlix.) says the white and 

 yellow kinds grow in Timor, where it is called chundana and by the Arabs sandal, 

 and the other kinds in the Malaya Islands, a special red form known as vermelho 

 being obtained in Tenasserim. [Cf. with recent information regarding kalamet 

 (jinnniHiiH diagei), Journ. Linn. Soc., 1905, xxxvii., 250-62.] Sandal is de- 

 scribed by Acosta, Linschoten, Pyrard, Matthiolus, Bontius, Hove, etc., and 

 for Indian writers consult the following : Abul Fazl, Aini-i-Akbari (Blochmann, 

 transl.), i., 81 ; Jahangir, Memoirs (Price, transl.), 14, 63; Foster, E.I.C. Letters, 

 1617, v., 267 ; vi., 163, 170; Alexander Hamilton, New Ace. E. Ind., 1727, i., 

 306; Jones, Sel. Ind. PL, As. Res., iv., 253; Milburn, Or. Comm., i., 291; Rama 

 Rao, Ind. For., 1908, xxxiv., 17-21. 



Cultivation. John Scott, Curator of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens, 

 Calcutta, showed that sandal-wood was a root parasite on many plants 

 (Journ. Agri.-Hort. Soc. Ind., 1871, ii., 287). Barber (Ind. For., 1902, 

 xxviii., 340) urged that a careful study of this circumstance might lead 

 to much-needed reforms in the methods of cultivation, as also to the true 

 explanation of the peculiar disease known as " Spike." Brandis followed 

 this up by a review of the literature on the parasitism of sandal (Ind. 

 For., 1903, xxix., 3-6). Kama Kao (Ind. For., xxix., 386-9) has furnished 

 full details of the parasitism, also excellent illustrations, and given a list 

 of some 100 host plants upon which the sandal had been found. Lastly, 



976 



