VEGETABLE SUBSTITUTES FOR SOAP 



ern tip of Florida, and besides its soapy possibilities 

 possesses seeds, hard and black, that serve for beads 

 and buttons; S. margmatus, Willd., an evergreen 

 tree sometimes sixty feet in height, occurs along our 

 southern Atlantic seaboard from the Carolinas to 

 Florida; S. Drummondii, H. & A., ranges from 

 Kansas to Louisiana and westward to Arizona, and 

 is known to Americans as Soap-berry or Wild China 

 tree, 2 and to the Spanish-speaking people as jabon- 

 cillo (little soap). All three species are trees with 

 pinnate leaves (non-deciduous in the first two) and 

 small, white flowers borne in terminal panicles; and 

 all produce fleshy berries about the size of cherries 

 and containing one or two seeds. It is in these 

 berries that the soapy property dwells, and this is 

 readily communicated to water in which the berries 

 are rubbed up. In the case of S. Drummondii, the 

 clusters of yellow berries (turning black as they 

 dry) are a conspicuous feature of the bare winter 

 branches, for it is their habit to persist on the trees 

 until spring. 



Also of the West is a species of gourd occurring 

 in dry soil from Nebraska to Mexico and westward 

 to the Pacific. In some sections it is known as 



2 From its resemblance to the true China tree ( Melia Azedarach ) , 

 extensively planted for ornament and shade in the Southern States. 



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