122 BOTANY OF INDIA. 



and naked stems and feathery tuft of arching leaves, forms 

 large groves, and, often lining the coast for many miles in 

 succession, is a striking and conspicuous object. Sandy 

 tracts of country on the seaside also produce various species 

 of Acada, whose finely-divided foliage is one of the first 

 attractions to the eye of the stranger. In such places the 

 Euphorbia antiquontm is common — an odd-looking, three- 

 cornered, and thorny kind of spurge, the juice of which is 

 supposed to furnish the Burmese with poison for their spears 

 and arrows. One of the most frequent and pleasing features 

 in the landscape throughout Hindostan is the luxuriant and 

 umbracreous mango-tope, yielding alike shade and subsist- 

 ence to the inhabitants. The mango {Mangifera Indica) is 

 a large tree with foliage somewhat resembling that of the 

 Spanish chestnut, and producing a fruit which is said to 

 vary in shape, colour, and flavour as much as apples do in 

 Europe. The fruit is brought to Europe in an unripe state 

 as a well-known pickle ; but in India it is esteemed a deli- 

 cacy by the rich, and a nutritious diet by the poor. Accord- 

 ing to Forbes, mango and tamarind trees are usually planted 

 when a village is built. " Some of the plantations or topes 

 are of such an extent, that ten or twelve thousand men may 

 encamp under shelter. It is a general practice, when a 

 plantation of mango-trees is made to dig a vyell on one side 

 of it. The well and the tope are married — a ceremony at 

 which all the village attends, and large sums are often ex- 

 pended. The well is considered as the husband, and its 

 waters, which are copiously furnished to the young trees 

 during the first hot season, are supposed to cherish and 

 impregnate them."* 



^o country in the world produces so large a number of 

 forest-trees as India ; many of them of the highest value 

 for timber, and, unlike our European trees, often distin- 

 guished for ample leaves and large and fragrant flowers. 

 Nothing can be more glorious than the appearance of an 

 Indian scene during the period, or soon after the rainy 

 season, when the whole country is replete with fragrance 

 and verdure ; when many of the more delicate herbaceous 

 plants, which had vanished, or languished under the intoler- 

 able heat, put forth their blossoms of every hue with aston- 



* Forbes's Oriental Jlemoirs. 



