FAMILY HERBAL. 31 1 



gum arable, and the gum which is obtained from 

 it is in the same manner very like that. 



This gum is the only product of the tree heard 

 of in medicine, and this is not much. It is brought 

 over, however, in great quantities, for the dyers 

 ose a great deal of it. It is in large lumps, of the 

 bigness ot an vgg ; rough on the surface, but 

 glossy and smooth when broken, and of a pale 

 brown colour. It is as easily and entirely dissolv- 

 ed in water as gum arabic, and has the same vir- 

 tues. It is very seldom called for by name in 

 medicine, but it is nevertheless often used, for 

 the druggists have a way of breaking the lumps 

 to pieces, and putting them among the gum 

 arabic ; they may be distinguished by their brown 

 colour, the true gum arabic being white, or yel- 

 lowish, if coloured at all, and never having any 

 brown in it : some pick these brown pieces out ; 

 but, upon a separate trial, they are found to be 

 so perfectly of the same nature, that it is a needless 

 trouble. 



Right Service Tree. Sorbus legitima. 



A tree wild in some parts of this kingdom, 

 but not known in others, nor even in many of our 

 gardens. It grows twenty feet high or more, and 

 the branches stand very irregularly. The leaves 

 are each composed of several pairs of smaller, 

 set on a common rib, with an odd one at the end 

 these are long, narrow, and serrated, so that they 

 have some resemblance of the ash tree. The 

 flowers are not large ; they are white, and stand 

 in clusters. Each is succeeded by a fruit of the 

 shape of a pear, and of the bigness of some pears 

 of the smaller kind ; these are green, except where 



