MISCELLANEOUS. 379 



clear the land, fire had been set to these groves. As 

 soon as the flame fairly embraced the canes a loud ex- 

 plosion succeeded, the general effect of which being that 

 of a well sustained skirmish between two hostile parties 

 of sharp-shooters. In Ecuador I once saw a sugar-cane 

 plantation on fire, but the noise of the bamboo by far 

 exceeded that caused by the former. The leaves of the 

 Qangawa, a species of pepper (Piper Siriboa, Linn.), 

 climbing and rooting like our ivy, and, if report may 

 be trusted, those of the Vusolevu (Colubrina Asiatic^ 

 Brongn.) are used for washing the hair, to clean it and 

 destroy the vermin. The Moli kurukum (Citrus vulc/aris, 

 Risso) serves the same purpose, a remark also applying 

 to the vine called Wa roturotu (Vitis saponaria, Seem.), 

 the stem of which, especially the thicker part, is cut in 

 pieces from a foot to eighteen inches long, cooked on 

 hot stones, and when thus rendered quite soft produces 

 in water a rich lather almost equal to that of soap. The 

 fruits of the Vago, or bottle-gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris, 

 Ser.), are readily converted into flasks for holding oil and 

 other fluids, by allowing their pulp to undergo decom- 

 position. The juice of the Vetao or Uvitai (Calysaccion 

 obovale, Miq.), a useful timber-tree, yields a dye, at pre- 

 sent only employed by the natives for changing their 

 black hair into red ; but when it is remembered that 

 its congener, the Calysaccion longifolium, Wight (= C. 

 Chinense, Wlprs.), furnishes the buds known as the 

 Nag-kassar of Indian commerce, it is not unlikely that 

 the Vetao or Uvitai may yet be turned to better uses. 



This enumeration by no means exhausts the catalogue 

 of the useful products in which a Flora of about a thou- 



