J AT 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



J A T 



739 



even. This plant shoots from a tough, branched, woody root, 

 the slender collateral fibres of which swell into those fleshy 

 conic masses, for which the plant is cultivated ; and rises by a 

 slender woody knotted stalk, to the height of four, five, or six 

 feet, and sometimes more. The flowers are produced in umbels 

 at the top of the stalks, some male and others female ; petals 

 five, spreading. This plant, which formerly supplied the 

 greatest part of the sustenance of the native Indians, is now 

 raised in most parts of America, and generally considered as 

 a very beneficial vegetable, yielding an agreeable wholesome 

 food, which, with its easy growth, and hardy nature, afford 

 it an universal recommendation. It grows to perfection in 

 about eight months, but the roots will remain a considerable 

 time in the ground uninjured. They are generally dug up as 

 occasion requires, and prepared for .use in the following man- 

 ner: first well washed and scraped, then rubbed to a pulpy 

 farina on iron graters, put into linen or palmetto bags, and 

 placed in a convenient press until the juice is entirely ex- 

 tracted. The farina is then taken out, and spread in the sun 

 for some time, pounded in large wooden mortars, run through 

 coarse sieves, and afterwards baked on convenient iron plates. 

 These are placed over proper fires, and when hot bestrewed 

 with the sifted meal to whatever size or thickness people 

 please to have the cakes made: this agglutinates as it heats, 

 grows gradually harder, and when thoroughly baked is a 

 wholesome well-tasted bread. Tapioca is also prepared from 

 this root. What is expressed from the farina is frequently 

 preserved and employed in many economical uses: in bailing 

 it throws up a thick viscid scum, which is always thrown away, 

 and the remaining fluid is sometimes diluted and kept for 

 common drink, and is thought very much to resemble whey 

 in that state. Some use it in sauce, for fish and many other 

 sorts of food, as it was used by the native Indians long before 

 Europeans had landed in those parts of the world. The juice 

 of the root is sweetish, but more or less of a deleterious nature, 

 both in a fresh and a putrid state, though it hardly retains any 

 thing of this quality while in a state of fermentation. The 

 milky juice swallowed, or the root eaten without preparation, 

 biings on convulsions, and occasions violentretching and purg- 

 ing: it acts only on the nervous system, and produces no in- 

 flammation in the stomach; but the stomach of one poisoned 

 by it, appears both in man and other animals to be con- 

 tracted one half. However violent the rohgh juice may be 

 found immediately after it is expressed, it is certain that swine 

 eat the roots daily without any detriment; and a little mint- 

 v/ater and salt of wormwood will calm the most violent symp- 

 toms that arise on taking it, and prevent all bad consequences, 

 even in the human species, if but speedily administered. The 

 farina, while yet impregnated with the juice, makes an excel- 

 lent salve, which seldom fails to cleanse and heal the most 

 desperate sores : where these are very foul, or the parts too 

 much relaxed, it is sometimes mixed with a few pounded to- 

 bacco leaves; and has been often found effectual where 

 common ointments have not had the least force; it is also 

 used by way of poultice, and is an excellent resolutive. In 

 Madagascar, Cassava is the ordinary food of the Blacks; and 

 the French call it, Madagascar Bread. In the West Indies 

 it is called Cassava, Cassada, or Cassadar ; in Brazil, Mandi- 

 hoca, Manuba ; whence we have the name Manihot ; and in 

 French, Manihiot. The Caraibes call it Juka, or Yuka; 

 which name is adopted by the Germans and the Spaniards, 

 who call it Yucca de Cassabe. At Rio Janeiro they call it the 

 Flour or Meal of the Cassava root, or Farinha de Pao, Wood 

 Flour, and not Powder of Post, as it has been absurdly trans- 

 lated. It flowers here in July and August. The Cassava root 

 thrives best in the West Indies, in a free mixed soil, is pro- 



pagated by the bud or gem, and is generally cultivated in the 

 following manner: The ground is first cleared, and hoed up 

 into shallow holes of about ten or twelve inches square, and 

 seldom above three or four inches in depth. When they 

 intend to plant, they provide a sufficient number of full-grown 

 stems, and cut them into junks of about six or seven inches 

 long, as far as they find them tough and woody, and well fur- 

 nished with prominent well-grown hardy buds : of these they 

 lay one or two in every hole, and cover them over with mould 

 from the adjoining bank ; but care must be taken to keep 

 the ground clean till the plants rise to a sufficient height to 

 cover the mould, and to prevent the growth of all the weaker 

 weeds. 



11. Jatropha Janipha ; Carthaginian Physic Nut. Leaves 

 palmate; lobes quite entire, the middle ones on both sides 

 lobed with a sinus. This is an upright shrub, smooth all over, 

 abounding in an aqueous juice, that is somewhat clammy, and 

 has the smell of Walnut leaves. Roots very tuberous, like 

 those of Asphodel, in bundles ; racemes loose, bearing a few 

 female flowers below many males ; corolla yellowish and 

 brownish green. In close woods it frequently rises with a 

 weak, unbranched, rod-like stem, to the height of twenty feet, 

 and it retains this habit in the European stoves. Native of 

 South America, common about Carthagena, flowering almost 

 the whole year; also of China, where, Loureiro says.it is used 

 not raw but boiled, as a resolutive, like the preceding. 



12. Jatropha Urens; Stinging Physic Nut. Leaves pal- 

 mate, toothed, prickly. Root thick, swelling, fleshy, from 

 which arises an herbaceous stalk as thick as a man's thumb, 

 four or five feet high, dividing into several branches, closely 

 armed with long brown spines. The flowers are produced in, 

 umbels at the top of the branches, standing upon long naked 

 peduncles ; they are of a pure white colour. The nerves of 

 the leaves are armed with stinging spines* It flowers from 

 May to July ; and is a native of Brazil. There is a variety 

 with leaves divided like the common Wolf's-bane. 



13. Jatropha Herbacea; Herbaceous Physic Nut. Prickly: 

 leaves three-lobed ; stem herbaceous. The whole plant is 

 closely armed with long stinging bristly spines. The flowers 

 grow in an umbel at the ends of the branches; they are 

 small, of a dirty white colour. Native of La Vera Cruz. It 

 is an annual plant: if the seeds be sown early in the spring, 

 and the plants are brought forward, they will perfect their 

 seeds the same year; but the other sorts are perennial, and 

 do not flower till the second or third year. 



14. Jatropha Elastica; Caoutchouc, or Elastic Gum Tree. 

 Leaves ternate, elliptic, quite entire, hoary underneath, on 

 long petioles. This tree is described as very lofty and 

 straight, and quite naked up to the head, which is very 

 small ; the trunk of the largest is only about two feet in 

 diameter: the fruit is triangular, enclosing three seeds: 

 these seeds or kernels, peeled and boiled in water, yield a 

 thick oil, which the Indians use as butter with their food ; 

 the wood of the tree is light, and fit for masts. It is a native 

 of Guiana, of Quito, and Brazil, particularly in Para, where 

 it is called Massaradub. The Indians, by an incision in the 

 bark, extract a viscid white substance, like that which issues 

 from the Fig-tree ; they receive it into earthen moulds, to 

 make lings, bracelets, girdles, syringes, hats, boots, flambeaux, 

 figures of animals, &c. The Abbe Rochon says, that the 

 inhabitants of Madagascar also make flambeaux of it, which 

 burn without wicks, and afford them a very good light when 

 they go out to fish in the night-time. Caoutchouc has the ex- 

 tensibility of leather, with very considerable elasticity; spirit 

 of wine makes no impression on it, but it dissolves in ethei 

 and linseed oil, or in nut oil digested gently in a sand bath ; 



