CORDIACEJE. 



t. 76. (Rheede iv. t. 37.) Many parts of India, Persia, Arabia, 

 Egypt. 



Trunk generally crooked, from 8 to 12 feet high, and as thick or 

 thicker than a man's body. Bark grey, cracked in various directions. 

 Branches numerous, spreading, and bent in every possible direction, 

 forming a dense shady head. Leaves scattered, stalked, ovate, oval, or 

 obovate, exterior half slightly scolloped, or toothed, smooth above, 

 below a little scabrous when old; from 2 to 3 inches long, and from 

 1^ to 2 broad; petioles about i the length of the leaves. Panicles 

 terminal, and also lateral, globular, dichotomous. Bracts none. Flowers 

 numerous, small, white; a very large proportion of them are sterile, 

 and they always want the style. Calyx tubular, widening towards the 

 mouth, and there torn as it were into 3, or 5 divisions, smooth, not in 

 the least striated. Corolla with revolute lobes. Style in the fertile 

 flowers as in the genus, in the barren flowers wanting. Drupe globular, 

 smooth, the size of a cherry, sitting in the enlarged calyx, when ripe, 

 yellow, the pulp is almost transparent, very tough and viscid. Nut 

 cordate, at both ends bidentate and perforated, rugose, somewhat 

 4-sided, 4-celled, but it rarely happens that all the cells prove fertile. 

 Seeds solitary. Roxb. The smell of the nut when cut is heavy, and 

 disagreeable, the taste of the kernels like that of fresh filberts. It is 

 the true Sebesten of the European Materia Medica. The fruits ac- 

 cording to Roxburgh, are not used in the Northern Circars of India, 

 for any medicinal purpose. When ripe they are eaten by the natives, 

 and also most greedily, by several sorts of birds, being of a sweetish 

 taste. The wood is soft, and of little use except for fuel. It is 

 reckoned one of the best kinds for kindling fire by friction, and is 

 thought to have furnished the wood from which the Egyptians con- 

 structed their mummy-cases. The bark is said by Dr. Royle to be 

 accounted a mild tonicu 



482 



