C L U 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



C L U 



329 



Opposite, imbricate. Corolla : four or six petalled. Stamina : 

 numerous. Female. Calix and Corolla as- in the males. 

 Keitary : formed by the coalition of the anthers;, including 

 the germen. Capsule: five-celled, five-valved, stuffed with 

 pulp. This is a genus of trees, abounding in a tenacious 

 glutinous juice, which becomes red when exposed to the air, 

 and hardens into a gum or resin. As the seeds seldom suc- 

 ceed in England; and the young plants grow so slowly as not 

 to make any figure for some years, the best method of having 

 these plants, is to procure them from the West Indies, to be 

 brought over in tubs : they are tender, and must be kept 

 constantly in the stove, otherwise they will not live through 

 the winter in England, in which season they must have very 

 little water. They may be propagated by cuttings, which 

 must be laid to dry for a fortnight or three weeks when they 

 are cut off from the plants, that the wounded part may be 

 healed over, otherwise they will rot. When the cuttings are 

 planted, the pots should be plunged into a hot-bed of tanner's 

 bark, and now and then gently refreshed with water : June 

 or July is the best time for planting these cuttings, that they 

 may be well rooted before the cold weather comes on in 

 autumn : they must be placed upon stands in the dry-stove 

 in winter, but if in summer they be plunged into the tan-bed, 

 they will make great progress, and their leaves will be large, 



in which the principal beauty of these plants consists. 



The species are, 



1. Clusia Rosea ; Rose-coloured Balsam Tree. Leaves 

 veinless ; corollas six-petalled. Height from twenty to thirty 

 feet ; flowers large, rose-coloured, and very handsome, but 

 without smell ; fruit green, the size of a middling apple, with 

 eight lines running like meridians on a globe, from the stalk 

 to the crown of it : when the fruit becomes ripe, it opens 

 at these lines ; and divides into eight parts, disclosing many 

 mucilaginous scarlet seeds, resembling those of a Pomegra- 

 nate ; the mucilage being washed off, the seeds appear white 

 and hard, and contain a kernel ; they are found in the hollow 

 furrows of an octagonal cove. The whole tree is exceed- 

 ingly beautiful, and the structure of the fruit itself is a 

 most exquisite piece of mechanism. Native of the Bahama 

 Islands, of St. Domingo, and also of other American islands 

 between the tropics. It is found among rocks, and fre- 

 quently upon the limbs and trunks of trees, occasioned by 

 birds scattering or voiding the seeds, which being glutinous 

 like those of Misletoe, take root in the same manner ; but the 

 roots not finding sufficient nutriment, spread on the surface 

 of the tree till they find a decayed hole or other lodgment, 

 wherein is some small portion of soil : the fertility of this 

 being exhausted, a root is discharged out of the hole till it 

 reaches the ground, though at forty feet distance, where it 

 again fixes itself and becomes a much larger tree. The resin 

 it produces is used to cure sores in horses, and instead of 

 tallow for paying the bottoms of boats, in order to accelerate 

 their motion through the water. 



2. Clusia. Alba.;. White-flowered Balsam Tree. Leaves vein- 

 less ; corollas five-petalled. Height thirty feet; an elegant 

 tree, parasitical, nr growing on other very large trees like the 

 first species : the trunk is frequently a foot in diameter, and 

 supports a spreading head. The whole abounds in a very 

 tenacious balsamic juice, of a green colour, but turning to 

 a brownish red when exposed to the air ; leaves obovate, 

 quite entire, obtuse, shining, coriaceous, firm, marked with 

 obliquely transverse parallel nerves, without any connecting 

 veins, on short petioles, opposite, placed chiefly at the 

 extremities of the smaller branches ; peduncles short, thick, 

 commonly three-flowered, and terminating; flowers inelegant 

 and without scent, white, all hermaphrodite, but with the 

 VOL. i. 28 



antherae more or less polliniferous ; fruits when ripe scarlet : 

 seeds white, involved in a scarlet pulp ; the birds are very fond 

 of them, and when the capsules burst open, hang over them 

 upon the wing, and pluck out the seeds with the pulpadhering. 

 It is common in the woods of Martinico, where it is called 

 aralie. The Caribs used the juice of it for paying their boats. 



3. Clusia Flava ; Yellow-flowered Balsam Tree. Leaves 

 veinless; corollas four-petalled . It is pretty common in the 

 British islands of America, where the trees grow to the height, 

 of twenty feet, and shoot out many branches on every side, 

 with thick, round, succulent leaves, placed opposite : the 

 flowers are produced at the ends of the branches, each having 

 a thick succulent cover ; they are of different colours in 

 different plants, some being red, others yellow, some white, 

 and some green. After the flowers are past, they are suc- 

 ceeded by oval fruit, which are also of different colours in 

 different plants. According to Jacquin, wherever the trunk 

 or larger branches are wounded, they throw out a thick resin- 

 ous gum, which the inhabitants of Jamaica sometimes use as 

 a vulnerary ; but it has neither an extraordinary smell nor a 

 pungent taste. 



4. Clusia Venosa; Fein-leaved Balsam Tree. Leaves 

 veined. This tree rises to the height of twenty or thirty feet ; 

 it has very large oval spear-shaped leaves, ending in points, 

 placed alternate on the branches, and having several ribs, 

 which go off from the mid-rib alternately, rising upward to 

 the side of the leaves, and also a great number of small veins 

 running horizontally between these ribs :' the borders of the 

 leaves are serrate, and their under surfaces of a brown colour : 

 the branches are covered with a woolly down ; and the flow- 

 ers are produced in loose spikes at the end of the shoots. 

 Jacquin describes the corolla as white, and an inch and a 

 half in diameter. Native of the moist mountainous woods 

 of Martinico. Where it is called paletuvier de montagne. 



5. Clusia Pedicillata. Leaves opposite, obovate and ellip- 

 tic, quite entire, veined; cymes axillary; flowers four- 

 petalled. Native of New Caledonia. 



6. Clusia Sessilis. Leaves opposite, obovate and elliptic, 

 quite entire, veined ; flowers axillary, solitary, subsessila, 

 four-petalled Native of Tongataboo. 



Cluytia; a genus of the class Dioecia, order Gynandria. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Male. Calix : perianth five-leaved, 

 size of the corolla ; leaflets ovate, obtuse, concave, spreading. 

 Corolla: petals five, spreading very much, cordate ; claws flat, 

 shorter than the calix ; nectaries exterior five, three-parted, 

 oblong, spreading, length of the claws of the petals, placed 

 in a circle within the petals ; nectaries interior five, glandi- 

 form, small, melliferous at the tip. Stamina: filamenta five, 

 placed on the middle of the style, remote from the corolla, 

 spreading horizontally ; anthers roundish, versatile. Pistil .- 

 germen none ; style cylindric, truncate, very long, bearing 

 the stamina on its middle. Female. Calix ; perianth as in 

 the male, permanent. Corolla: petals as in the male, per- 

 manent ; nectaries exterior five, twin, roundish, of the same 

 size and situation as in the male; nectaries interior, none. 

 Pistil : germen roundish ; styles three, bifid, reflex, length 

 of the corolla ; stigmas obtuse. Pericarp : capsule globular, 

 six-furrowed, rough, three-celled. Seeds : solitary, round- 

 ish, even, appendiculated at the tip. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. 

 Calix: five-leaved. Corolla: five-petalled. Styles: in the 

 female flowers three. Capsule: three-celled. Seed: one. 

 The species are, 



1. Cluytia Alaternoides; Narrow-leaved Cluytia. Leaves 

 subsessile, linear-lanceolate ; flowers solitary, erect. Stem 

 shrubby, six or eight feet high, putting out many side- 

 branches which grow erect ; leaves of a grayish colour, and 

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