112 TROPICAL PLANTS 



bark, small white flowers, and polished leaves, with a somewhat 

 unpleasant odour. Owing to the difficulty of carr3ring its heavy 

 beams, the natives cut it only near the banks of the rivers, 

 down which it is floated to the coast, whence large quantities are 

 exported to every part of the colony. The richly coloured and 

 feathery pieces are used for cabinet-work, and the more ordinary 

 logs for building purposes, every house in the eastern province 

 beinir floored and timbered with satinwood. 



The Sandal tree, which furnishes the sweet-scented, fine- 

 grained wood, so highly prized by the Chinese, and so much used 

 in small cabinets, escritoires, and similar articles, because no 

 insect can exist within its influence, also deserves to be noticed 

 as one of the most valuable productions of the Malabar coast. 

 It chiefly grows on rocky hills, and, if permitted, would attain a 

 tolerable size, but, from its great value, is generally cut down at 

 an early stage. On low land and a richer soil it degenerates, 

 and is in all respects less esteemed. A variety of the same 

 tree, but furnishing a wood of inferior quality, grows on many 

 of the South Sea islands, — Hawaii, Feejee, the New Hebrides 

 but in many parts the excessive avidity of the traders has almost 

 caused its total extirpation. The sandal is a beautiful tree ; the 

 branches regular and tapering ; the leaf like that of the willow, 

 but shorter and delicately soft. The blossoms hang in bunches of 

 small flowers, either red or white, according to the colour of the 

 wood. 



On turning our attention to America we find that Nature, 

 delighting in infinite varieties of developement, and disdaining 

 servile copy of what she had elsewhere formed, covers the earth < 

 with new and no less remarkable forms of vegetation. Thus,, 

 while in Africa the baobab attracts the traveller's attention by 

 its colossal size and peculiarity of growth, the gigantic Ceiba 

 (Bomhax Ceiba), belonging to the same family of plants, raises 

 his astonishment in the forests of Yucatan. Like the baobab, 

 this noble tree rises only to a moderate height of sixty feet, but 

 its trunk swells to such dimensions that fifteen men are hardly 

 able to span it, while a thousand may easily screen themselv( 

 under its canopy from the scorching sun. The leaves fall off 

 January ; and then at the end of every branch bunches of large^ 

 glossy, purple-red flowers make their appearance, affording, 

 one may well imagine, a magnificent sight. In Guiana t^| 



