661 



SANTALACE.*:. 



SAP. 



1)02 



lately been proposed in Calcutta to try the fibre on a large scale for 

 rope-making. 



S. lanuginosa is a third species, found on the sands of Malabar, 

 while X Guineentis is a species found along a great extent of the west 

 coast of Africa, and which, from affording fibres which, like those of 

 the Indian species, are fine and strong, has been called African Bow- 

 String Hemp. This has been proposed as a substitute for and con- 

 sidered even superior to New Zealand flax. ,S'. Gttineensis is distin- 

 guished by having uniform lanceolate leaves, the style twice as long 

 as the stamens ; the bracts only a third of the length of the tube of 

 the corolla ; the flowers sessile. 



SANTALA'CE^E, a natural order of Plants belonging to the class 

 of Exogens and sub-class Incomplete?. They are trees, shrubs, or 

 herbaceous plants, with round or irregularly-angled branches ; alter- 

 nate or nearly-opposite undivided leaves, sometimes minute, and 

 resembling stipules. The flowers are small, in spikes, racemes, umbels, 

 or solitary. The calyx superior, 4- or 5-cleft. Stamens 4 or 5, oppo- 

 site the segments of the calyx. Ovary 1-celled, with from 1 to 4 

 ovules. Fruit 1-seeded, hard, dry, and drupaceous. Albumen fleshy. 

 This order is closely allied to LmantKacece and Ariitolochiaceoe. One 

 of iU most remarkable characters is that its unilocular ovary contains 

 always more ovules than one, which are pendulous and attached to 

 the apex of a central receptacle. In the form of weeds the genera of 

 frantalacea; are found in Europe and North America; in Australia, the 

 East Indies, and the South Sea Islands, they exist as large shrubs or 

 small trees. 



Otyris belongs to this order, although it differs in having dicccious 

 flowers and a trifid calyx. This is however a different plant from the 

 Oiyrit of Pliny, which possessed in former times a reputation for 

 curing evejy disease. The modern genus possesses no sensible pro- 

 perties as a medicine, and is principally employed for the manufacture 

 of besoms, for which its long slender branches well fit it. The 

 Ogeehee Lime, which is used on the Mississippi instead of olives, is 

 the fruit of Nygsa candicara. The Nytice form trees of great beauty, 

 and their wood is white, soft, compact, and light. The most valuable 

 genus in this order is its type, the Santalum, of which the species >S'. 

 '. forms the true sandal-wood of commerce. 



c a b 



White Sandal-Wood (Snntalam album). 



a, branch with leaves, flower*, and fruit ; 6, flower with the calyx open, 

 howlnff the j.erigynous Btamrns and their appendages, the inferior ovary, 

 simple style, and lobcd stigma ; c, transverse section of fruit, with one seed ; 

 <l, longitudinal section of fruit, with solitary pendulous seed. 



SA'NTALUM, a genus of Plants which gives its name to the 

 natural order Hantalacea, to which it belongs. It has hermaphrodite 

 flowers, the perianth united at the base with the ovary, the limb 

 superior, tubular, and ventricoge, quadrifid, deciduous; glands four, 

 compressed, inserted into the throat, alternating with the lobes of the 

 limb. Stamens 4, inserted into the throat opposite to the lobes of 

 the limb ; filaments awl-shaped, loaded with a pencil of hairs behind ; 

 anthers 2-celled; ovary half inferior, 1-celled; ovules 2, antropous 

 pendulous from the apex of a free central placenta; style filiform, 

 simple ; stigma obscurely 2-3-lobed ; drupe berried, 1-seeded ; margined 

 at the apex. Seed inverse. Embryo straight at the apex of a fleshy 

 Hlbumen. Radicle above. 



S. album, or the White Sandal- Wood, is a native of the mountainous 

 parts of the coast of Malabar, and also of Timor and the islands of 

 the Indian Archipelago, as it is probable that the same species extends 

 to great distances. It forms a tree of moderate or rather of small 

 size, but much branched, and in general appearance has been often 

 compared to the myrtle, and in inflorescence to the privet. The 

 leaves are opposite, with short petioles, oblong, entire, smooth, 

 glaucous underneath ; length from one and a half to three inches. 

 The inflorescence is in axillary and terminal thyrsi. Flowers numer- 

 ous, small, straw-coloured when they first expand, but change to a 

 deep ferruginous purple ; they are inodorous, as are all the exterior 

 parts of the growing plant even when bruised. The tree when felled 

 is about nine inches or a foot in diameter ; it is then barked, cut into 

 billets, and said to be buried in a dry place for about a couple of 

 months. The deeper the colour and the nearer the root, the more 

 fragrant it is. As seen in commerce it is in compact pieces of a white 

 colour and agreeable odour, but with little taste. It is usually des- 

 cribed as being the youug and outer wood, and that the inner parts, 

 as they become older, become coloured towards the centre, and that 

 this is the source of the yellow, while the white sandal-wood consists 

 of the outer and younger wood of the same tree. 



This is the general opinion respecting the origin of yellow sandal- 

 wood, but Qarcias thought it in his time to be the produce of a 

 different tree. M. Gaudichaud is of the same opinion ; and has more- 

 over figured the plant in plate 45 of the botanical part of the ' Voyage 

 de I'Uranie.' This he saw in the Sandwich Islands, and has named 

 it freycinetianum ; stating it to produce the sandal-wood which is 

 so much valued by the Chinese, which they also obtain from the 

 Feejie and Marquesa Islands, Moluccas, c. They manufacture various 

 articles with the yellow sandal-wood, which is the most fragrant. 

 They also burn it both in their temples and private houses as an 

 incense, and especially in the form of long slender candles, which aro 

 formed by covering the ends of sticks with the sawdust of sandal- 

 wood mixed with rice paste. 



S. myrtifolimn is another species, or a strongly marked variety of 

 .S'. album, found by Dr. Roxburgh in the mountains of the Rajamundry 

 Circar, and which was figured by him in plate 2 of his ' Coromandel 

 Plants : ' it is distinguished by its opposite lanceolate leaves. The 

 wood is of little value, according to Dr. Roxburgh, but Dr. Wallich 

 says it is ' certe odoratissimum." 



About 200 tons are annually imported into Calcutta from the 

 Malabar coast, and about twice as much into Canton from the islands 

 of the Indian Archipelago. 



SAP, in vegetable physiology, is the fluid which plants imbibe from 

 the soil in which they are placed, and is the great source from which 

 they are nourished, and their various peculiar secretions produced. 

 One of the most important conditions of the growth of plants is, that 

 they may be placed in circumstances to absorb from the soil those 

 constituents of which their sap is composed. The constituents of sap 

 may be divided into those which are essential, or necessary for the 

 growth of all plants, and those which are special, or necessary only 

 for the growth of particular plants or families of plants. The ele- 

 mentary bodies which form the essential constituents of sap are 

 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. These bodies are capable of 

 uniting with each other and forming a great number of secondary 

 combinations, and are seldom, if ever, absorbed in a pure state by 

 plants. The forms in which they enter the plant and constitute its 

 essential ingredients are those of water, carbonic acid, and ammonia. 

 Water is one of the most universally necessary constituents of organic 

 beings, and exercises a double function in relation to their nutrition. 

 In the first place it enters largely into their composition, and in the 

 second place it is the medium by which the various compounds are 

 carriec' into the system of both plants and animals. 



Many water-plants are almost entirely composed of water, and there 

 are none that do not contain this substance, in large quantities, as 

 is seen in the diminution of their weight by drying. Plants however 

 throw off larger quantities of water than they retain, and this is 

 necessary to the supply of the organic and inorganic elements of 

 which they are composed, and which are found present in the sap. 

 In a series of experiments performed by Mr. Laws, in which he care- 

 fully weighed the quantity of water supplied to certain plants, and 

 afterwards the quantity of organic and inorganic matters they pos- 

 sessed, he found that for every 200 grains of water absorbed and 

 exhaled, one grain of organic matter was appropriated by the plant, 

 and for every 2000 grains of water consumed, one grain of inorganic 

 matter was appropriated. Water is supplied to plants both in the 

 form of rain and vapour, but Schleiden has pointed out in opposition 

 to the commonly received views on this subject, that by far the largest 

 quantity of water supplied to plants is due to the latter source. 



"The complete independence of vegetation of the atmospheric 

 precipitation of rain in a liquid form is seen in the vegetation of the 

 Oases, and of the cloudless coasts of Chili and Peru (see Darwin and 

 Loudon), and in a small way in the experiments of Ward. The 

 sand of the Sahara produces no vegetation, not because no rain falls 

 upon it, but because it has not the power of condensing aqueous 

 vapour. Of the water which falls as rain, very little is used directly 

 by the plant ; the greatest part runs off or is evaporated into the 

 atmosphere whilst another part sinks into the earth and feeds the 



