238 MEDICINAL PLANTS OF JAMAICA. 



bark, for which it is often substituted ; and I have seen the 

 powder administered in intermittents with success, when the 

 Peruvian bark could not be had. 



(Towards the top it sends off long spreading branches, hav- 

 ing; light coloured and sometimes red or withered like leaves. 

 The blossoms are numerous, small and yellow. The fruit 

 is an oval pod, about the size of a goose's egg ; when ripe the 

 hard pericarpium splits open on the tree, and the seeds fall to 

 the ground. 



The quality of the wood varies according to the soil and 

 situation. That which grows on mountainous or rocky places 

 is generally of a closer texture than what is found on low sa- 

 vannahs and swamps. This may account for the Spanish ma- 

 hogany being of coarser grain, and therefore of less value, than 

 the Jamaica wood. The people who go from Jamaica to Cuba 

 cut their mahogany near the sea, and bring it away by stealth. 

 No doubt the hilly inland places produce as good timber as 

 ours.) 



82. Tamarindus Indica — The Tamarind Tree. 



This beautiful, shady, and useful tree, is cultivated all over 

 the West Indies. It rises to thirty or forty feet high. The 

 trunk is brown, scaly, and of a good size. The wood is 

 brown, very hard, and takes a fine polish. 



The branches are spreading : the leaves small, numerous, 

 and pinnated. The flowers yellow, and beautifully streaked 

 with crimson ; they continue during the whole of June and 

 July, and then drop off. 



The fruit is a broad, ash-coloured pod. The external cover- 

 ing is thin and brittle. This being removed, we find several 

 hard seeds, like beans, enveloped in a soft brown pulp, which 

 is secured by sundry longitudinal woody fibres. This fruit 

 is ripe about Easter, when it is picked off the trees, and put 

 up for use. 



