1133 



GUM-TRAGACANTH. 



GYMNOGENS. 



1131 



which gives to them a medicinal value. TGuM-RESiNS, iu ARTS AND 

 Sc. Div.] 



GUM-TRAGACANTH. [ASTRAGALUS.] 



GUM-TREE. [EUCALYPTUS.] 



GUMS. [DEXTITION; TKETH.] 



GUNNELL. [MUR.ENIM.] 



GURHOFFIAN. [DOLOMITE.] 



GURNARD. [TRIGLA.] 



GUTTIFER.E. [CLCSIACE*.] 



GUYAQUILLITE, a form of Fossil Resin found in South America. 

 It is soluble in alcohol. 



GYALL, the name of the Indian Jungle Bull, Hot frontalw of 

 Lambert. [BOVID.E.] 



GYMNADE'NIA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 Orchidacece and the tribe Ophrydinece. It is distinguished from the 

 genus Orchio by the glands of the pollen masses being without a 

 pouch. There are two British species, G. conopsea and G. albida. 



0. conopsea has a 3-lobed lip ; the lobes equal, entire, obtuse ; the 

 lateral sepals spreading, spur filiform, twice as long as the germeu ; 

 root-knobs, palmate. The stem is a foot high; leaves linear- 

 lanceolate. 



G. Ereyerii is a native of South America at the river Magdalena. 

 It has blue flowers ; leaves with two or three pairs of unequal leaflets, 

 the extreme ones oblong, elliptical, unequal-sided, middle pair 

 obovate, lower ones roundish ; peduncles umbellate. 



G. verticale is a native of Mexico and St. Domingo. The flowers 

 are blue with vertical petals. The leaves with three or six pairs, but 

 usually five pairs of oblong coriaceous mucronate leaflets, the outer 

 ones obovate, which are as well as the branches very smooth. 



0. sanctum is . tree 20 feet high, a native of South America, 

 particularly in the island of St. Domingo, Mexico, and Brazil. 



GYMNARCHUS, a genus of Malacopterygious Apodal Fishes. The 

 body is long and scaly ; the gill opening before the pectoral fins ; 

 dorsal fin running the whole length of the back ; tail ending in a 

 point ; head naked and conical ; mouth small, with a single row 

 of cutting teeth. G. Nilotieia is the only species; it inhabits 

 the Nile. 



GYM N EM A, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 Aiclepiadacea. It has a sub-urceolate 5-cleft corolla, the throat 

 usually crowned by five scales or teeth inserted in the recesses between 

 the segments of the corolla. The stamineous corona is wanting. The 

 anthers terminate by a membrane, the pollen masses are erect, fixed 

 by the base. The follicles smooth. Seeds comose, generally margi- 

 nate. The species are usually twining shrubs, natives of the East 

 Indies, the tropical parts of Australia, and Equinoctial Africa. 

 The leaves are opposite, membranous, and flat. The umbels iuter- 

 petiolar and cymose. In the greater number of species the stamens 

 are not usually naked, but are furnished with a gland-like body or 

 fleshy tuft at the base of each filament. 



G. lactifcrum, Cow-Plant, or Milk-Bearing Gymnema, has an erect 

 stem, or rather twining ; the leaves are on short petioles, ovate, bluntly 

 acuminated, usually unequal-sided; the umbels many-flowered, 

 shorter than the petioles ; the throat of the corolla crowned by five 

 fleshy tubercles ; the tube furnished with double pilose lines 

 running from the tubercles. It is a native of Ceylon, where the milk 

 of the plant is sometimes substituted for cow's milk, and the leaves 

 are boiled with food. 



0. tingent is a native of Pegu. It has a twining glabrous stem, 

 cordate leaves, acuminated to oval ; the umbels or corymbs often twin, 

 at first shorter than the petioles, and at length spirally elongated ; 

 the glands of the filaments one-half shorter than the stamens; follicles 

 cylindrical, epoon-shaped ; stigma simple, oval, inutic, crowning the 

 tube of the corolla, and therefore exceeding the stamens. The 

 flowers are largish, numerous, and of a pale-yellow colour. The 

 calyx 5-cleft to the base. From the leaves of this plant a green dye 

 is prepared by the Burmese. Seventeen species of this genus are 

 enumerated, none of them of any particular interest. 



(Lindley, Vegetable Kingdom ; Don, Dichlamydeous Plants.) 



GYMNETRUS, a genus of Fishes belonging to the group of 

 Riband-Shaped Acanthopteryrjii. It has the following characters : 

 Body elongated, compressed ; a single dorsal fin extending the whole 

 length of the back ; ventrals consisting each of a single ray, only 

 sometimes very long and dilated at the end ; no anal fin ; teeth 

 pointed, small. The species of this genus have very rarely been 

 obtained entire. They have generally been taken dead, and con- 

 sequently have been crushed and mutilated. Of the species of this 

 genua, Mr. Yarrell says, "three probably belong to the Mediterranean, 

 two to the seas of the North of Europe, and two to India. One 

 northern species, besides one of those apparently belonging to India, 

 has been taken on the shores of this country. That of the north has 

 occurred more than once in Scotland ; that of India once on the coast 

 of Cornwall." 



0. Ilawkenii (Bloch), Hawken's Gymnetrus, the Oared Gymnetrus, 

 the Ceil Conin of Cornwall. This species has been taken in Corn- 

 wall. The following description has been drawn up by Mr. Couch 

 from a drawing and notes of a specimen taken in a net at Mount's 



Bay in 1791 : "The length without tbe extremity of the tail, which 



was wanting, wan 8i feet; the depth 104 inches; thickness 2$ inches; 



weight 40 Ibs. In the drawing the head ends in a short and 

 elevated front ; eye large ; pectoral fin round ; no anal fin ; the dorsal 

 fin reaches from above the eye to the tail. The ventrals are formed 

 of four long red processes, proceeding from the thorax, and ending 

 in a fan-shaped appendage, of which the base is purple, the expansion 

 crimson. The back and belly are dusky-green ; the sides whitish ; 

 the whole varied with clouds and spots of a darker green ; the fins 

 crimson." A very fine specimen of this fish caught off the coast of 

 Northumberland, was exhibited in London at the time the discovery 

 of the Great Sea-Serpent was announced, and was supposed to explain 

 the nature of this discovery. 



The Gymnetrus arcticus of Cuvicr, the Vaagnaer, or Deal-Fish, has 

 been referred to the genus Trachypterus. [TRACHyriERUS.l 



GYMNOCEPHALUS. [CORACINA.] 



GYMNO'CLADUS (from jiip.vas, naked, and KA.<8or, a, branch), 

 a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order Leyuminosce. It has 

 dioecious flowers ; the calyx tubular, 5-eleft ; the petals five, equal, 

 oblong, exserted from the tube ; the stamens ten, inclosed ; the legume 

 oblong, thick, filled with pulp inside. There is but one species, 

 G. Canadensis, the Kentucky Coffee-Tree. It is an upright deciduous 

 tree, with compound alternate, stipulate, bipinnate leaves, and white 

 flowers in terminal racemes. The branches of this tree are without 

 any appearance of buds, which, during the winter, gives it the aspect 

 of a dead tree, and hence the Canadian name ' chicot,' or stump-tree. 

 The wood is hard, compact, and of a fine rose colour. In America it 

 is used in cabinet-making and carpentry. It has the property of 

 rapidly converting its sap-wood into heart-wood, so that the smallest 

 trees may be converted to useful purposes. The seeds were at one 

 time roasted and ground as a substitute for coffee in Kentucky and 

 Tennessee ; but they are not often used in this way at the present 

 day. The pods, preserved in the same way as the tamarind, are said 

 to be wholesome and aperient. This tree grows well in Great Britain, 

 but does not ripen its seed.". It is best propagated by imported seeds, 

 but it will also grow freely from cuttings of the roots. It requires a 

 rich, deep, free soil. (Loudou, Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs.) 



GYMNODACTYLUS. [GECKOTID*.] 



GYMNODERUS. [CORACINA.] 



GYMNOGASTER. [TRACHYFTERUS.] 



GYMNOGENS, or GYMNOSPERMS, one of the divisions under 

 which the vegetable kingdom is now classified. The name is derived 

 from the seeds being naked, that is to 'say, unprotected by a peri- 

 carpal covering, and fertilised by the pollen coming in direct contact 

 with the ovule, not by the intervention of the apparatus callad 

 stigma and style. In this respect Gymuosperms are analogous to those 

 reptiles which, in the animal kingdom, have eggs that are impregnated 

 by the male after they have been deposited by the mother. 



The plants comprehended in this class have nearly an equal relation 

 to flowering and flowerless plants. With the former they agree in 

 habits, iu the presence of sexes, and in their vascular tissue being 

 complete; with Ferns and Club-Mosses, among the latter, some also 

 accord in habit, iu the peculiar gyrate vernation of the leaves of some 

 Cycads, iu their spiral vessels being imperfectly formed, and in the 

 sexes being less complete than in other flowering plants ; the females 

 wanting a pericarpal covering, and receiving fertilisation directly 

 through the foramen of the ovule, without the intervention of style 

 or stigma, and the males sometimes consisting of leaves imperfectly 

 contracted into an anther bearing a number of pollen-cases upon their 

 surface. So great is the resemblance between Club-Mosses and cer- 

 tain Conifers, that there is no obvious external character except size 

 by which they can be distinguished. Gyrnnogens are known from most 

 other Vasculares by the vessels of their wood having large apparent per- 

 forations or discs. [CONIFER^;.] It is not however on this account to be 

 understood that they differ in growth from other Exogens ; on the 

 contrary they are essentially the same, deviating in no respect from 

 the plan upon which Exogenous Plants increase, but having a kind of 

 tissue peculiar to themselves. At this point of the vegetable kingdom 

 there is a plain transition from the highest form of organisation to 

 the lowest. Gymuogens are essentially Exogens in all that appertains 

 to the organs of vegetation; they have concentric zones iu their 

 wood, a vascular system in which spiral vessels are found, and a 

 central pith, but they are analogous to reptiles in the animal king- 

 dom. The two most remarkable of the orders are Conifers and 

 Cycads. Of these the former is connected with Club-Mosses among 

 Acrogens by means of the extinct genus Lepidudendron, and their 

 branches are sometimes so similar to those of certain Lycopods them- 

 selves as to leave no doubt of their relation. Compare, for instance, 

 Lycopodium phlegmaria, and Canningltamia sinensu. Some Cycads 

 have the gyrate vernation of the leaves of true Ferns, along with the 

 inflorescence of Conifers; and their mode of forming their trunk, 

 although essentially the same as that of Exogeus, yet resembles the 

 growth of Acrogens in lengthening by a terminal bud only. While 

 however the class of Gymuogeus is thus distinctly marked by the 

 most important physiological peculiarities, it approaches the highest 

 forms of vegetation by that portion of it which bears the name of 

 Joint-Firs (Gnetacece) plants with all tho structure of their class, but 

 with the manner of growth of Chlorauths (Cltloranthaceai) and Beef- 

 woods (Caauarinacece). (Liudley ' Vegetable Kingdom.') 



The following figure of Juniperue Oxycedrus will show the pecu- 



