428 LXVII. URTICACEJE. [Artocarpi 



a subglobose receptacle, covered on the outside with numerous stamens and 

 peltate bracteoles. The snake or letter wood of the West Indies, Guiana, and 

 Mexico, a beautiful heavy dark-coloured wood with small pores and numerous 

 very fine medullary rays, which on a vertical section appear like linear bands 

 with sharply defined and exactly parallel sides, is the produce of a tree of this 

 genus, Piratinera guianensis of Aublet, the Bois de lettres, a large tree of 

 Guiana, identified by Poppig with Brosimum Aubletii of the Huallaga river in 

 North Peru, and by Miquel with Brosimum discolor, Schott, a small tree of 

 Brazil. Another species, B. Namagua, Seemann, of New Granada and Cen- 

 tral America, has a thick woolly fibrous inner bark, which is made into beds, 

 garments, and ropes, and used as sails in the native canoes (Hooker's Journal, 

 iii. (1851) 269). 



11. CELTIS, Tournefort. 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate stipulate leaves. Flowers polygamous, 

 in axillary or lateral cymes. Perianth deciduous, of 4-5 segments, imbri- 

 cate in bud. Stamens as many as, and shorter than, perianth-segments, 

 in the male flowers surrounding a rudimentary ovary inserted on a hairy 

 disc. Ovary on a hairy disc, stigmata 2, sessile, deciduous. Fruit an 

 ovoid or globose drupe, with a hard, coriaceous or bony kernel. 



1. C. australis, Linn. Tab. L. Eeichenb. Ic. Fl. Germ. 1338, t. 6G7. 

 Syn. C. tetrandra, Koxb. Fl. Ind. ii. 63 ; C. caucasica, Willd. ; Mico- 

 coulier, Fr. ; Perlaro, bagolaro, It. ; Ziirgelbaum, Germ. Vera. Tagho, 

 takJium, Afg. ; Brimlu, khirJc, khalk, khark, Tchirg, ku, roku, choku, bramji, 

 bathar, kai, bigni, biugli^h. ; Kar, Kunawar j Tagha, Sindh ; Khar ah, 

 kharika, Mirk, N.W.P. 



A middle-sized deciduous tree, with bifarious branches ; young leaves, 

 branchlets, and petioles hairy. Leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, unequal- 

 based, acuminate, more or less rough when full-grown, serrate, the lower 

 third of the leaf often entire, 3 basal nerves, the midrib penniveined, 

 blade 3-5 in., petiole J in. long; stipules subulate, caducous, shorter than 

 petiole. Flowers yellowish- white, tetramerous or pentamerous, bisexual 

 flowers axillary, pedicels more than twice the length of petiole, the male 

 flowers on shorter pedicels, in lateral fascicles or short racemes, below the 

 leaves, or in the axils of the youngest leaves. Drupe ovoid, J in. long, 

 putamen reticulate-rugose, seeds oily. 



Afghanistan, ascending to 8800 ft. Suliman range trans-Indus. Salt range. 

 Himalaya, ascending to 8500 ft., from the Indus to Bhutan. Kasia hills. Also 

 in western Asia and the Mediterranean region. Upper limit on the Sutlej : 

 Jangi right, Morung left bank. Frequently planted in the Panjab plains and 

 the N.W. Himalaya, in Sindh and Beluchistan. Fl. March-May, before the 

 leaves appear, or with the first leaves ; fr. July-Sept. Attains 30-40 ft. ; trunk 

 short, straight, 6-8 ft. girth, one noted 16 ft. ; branches spreading. Bark ^ in. 

 thick, bluish-grey, or brown, smooth or rough with brown and whitish, often 

 raised specks, not furrowed, but frequently with numerous small cracks and 

 circular wrinkles, the trunk often appearing as if constricted with cords. Growth 

 generally slow. "Wood light-coloured, close- and even-grained, hard and tough, 

 a continuous belt of large pores in the spring wood, other pores smaller, uni- 

 formly distributed, joined by narrow undulating often zig-zag lines of whitish 

 tissue. Hardy in England. 



