FABACE-flE, OR LEGUMINOSJE. 



smooth. A decoction of the leaves and flowers has been employed 

 with success against the fevers of Tortola. Root acrid and even poi- 

 sonous. Schomburgk in Linn. 'x. 512. The wood makes the best of all 

 charcoal. 



The leaves when bruised have a smell resembling that of savine, and 

 the infusion, of either them or the flowers, is considered a powerful 

 emmenagogue, so as even to bring on abortion. The leaves are also 

 said to be purgative, and to have been used as a substitute for senna. 

 The seeds, in powder, are stated to form a remedy for the belly-ache. 

 Macfadyen. 



H^MATOXYLON. 



Sepals 5, united at the base into a permanent tube. Petals 5, 

 scarcely longer than the sepals. Stamens 10 ; filaments hairy 

 at the base ; anthers without glands. Style capillary. Legume 

 compressed, flat, lanceolate, acuminate at each end, 2-seeded; 

 the sutures indehiscent, the valves bursting longitudinally. 



549. H. campeachianum Linn. sp. pi. 549. DC.prodr.ii.4f85. 

 Macfady. fl. jam. 332. (Sloane ii. t. 10. f. 1 4.) Cam- 

 peachy, common all over the West India Islands. (Logwood.) 



A low spreading tree ; stem generally crooked and deformed, seldom 

 thicker than a man's thigh ; branches somewhat flexuose, terete, covered 

 with whitish dots ; in mountain and moist situations unarmed ; in the 



Elains or where the tree is stunted, furnished with spines below the 

 ;aves. Leaves 2-4 from the same point (an irregular rough tubercular 

 prominence), pinnate, sometimes dividing in a bipinnate manner, at the 

 lowest pair of leaflets ; leaflets 4-paired, shortly stalked ; obovate or 

 obcordate. Racemes at first about the length of the leaf, afterwards, as 

 the pods form, elongating. Flowers on pedicels half an inch in length, 

 yellow, slightly fragrant. Calyx deeply 5-parted ; lobes unequal, thin, 

 membranous, purplish, deciduous; tube short, green, bell-shaped. Petals 

 nearly equal ^ obovate, wedge-shaped at the base, scarcely longer than 

 the sepals. Stamens alternately short, inserted, as also the petals, on 

 the inside of the margin of the persistent tube of the calyx; anthers 

 ovate. Ovary lanceolate, compressed, 3-seeded ; style projecting beyond 

 the stamens and petals ; stigma capitate, expanded. Pods compressed, 

 flat, lanceolate, acuminate at both ends, 2-seeded, not opening at the 

 sutures, but bursting longitudinally by a division passing down through 

 both the valves. Macf. Chiefly used by dyers. It is a powerful 

 astringent and may be employed as a substitute for Kino, Catechu, &c. 

 In diarrhoea and dysentery the decoction is used with benefit. Macf. 



BOWDICHIA. 



Calyx turbinate-campanulate, 5-toothed ; teeth acute, erect, 

 the upper approximated. Petals 5, distinct ; the lateral ones 

 longest, arranged in a somewhat papilionaceous manner. Sta- 

 mens 10? distinct. Legume stipitate, with 10 ovules, com- 

 pres^ed, membranous, with a winged border on the seed-edge, 

 1-celled, indehiscent. Embryo straight. DC. 



550. B. virgilioides HBK. vi. 376. DC. prodr. ii. 519. 



264 



