BOTANY. S39 



Pitcairn Island. Society Isles ; native name nmara.^- 

 Sandwich group, uwdra. Marquesas. Timor. 



C. Brasiliensis. Sands of the sea-shore, Society 

 Isles ; native name pohue. Island of Timor. 



C. purpureus. C. tuber culatus. Pasture-lands, Sand- 

 wich Islands. 



C. (near sepium.) C. (near arvensis.) Society Isles 

 and Timor. 



C. ovalifolius. Salt-pond, Oahu, Sandwich Isles. 



Psychotria herbacea. A very pretty repent plant, 

 growing in great abundance 011 moist and wooded lands. 

 The leaves are reniform ; the flowers white and mono- 

 petalous ; the fruit is a globular scarlet berry, contain- 

 ing two hemispherical seeds. 



Raiatea, Society Isles ; native name tuatupo. 



Plumbago Zeylanica. Lead-wort. The root of this 

 plant is powerfully irritating when applied to the human 

 skin, and is used as a vesicatory by the Society Island- 

 ers. I have seen it thus employed, with much judg- 

 ment, as a native remedy for a diseased spine; the 

 application producing all the good effects of the more 

 refined blister and issue of European surgery. It 

 possesses this acrid property in common with some 

 other species of the same family, (as P. Europeus, which 

 is used by continental mendicants for the purpose of 

 producing artificial sores to excite pity,) but has also a 

 remarkable power of staining the cuticle of a permanent 

 black colour, like lunar-caustick ; a property of which the 



z 2 



