J 44 BOTANY OF INDIA. 



days, to have served the purpose of our first parents, than 

 the degenerate foUage which we now see. 



" So counseird Vie, and both together went 

 Into the thickest wood ; there soon they chose 

 The fig-tree ; not that kind for fruit renown'd, 

 But such as at this day to Indians known, 

 In Malahar or Deccan spreads her arms, 

 Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 

 The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 

 About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade. 

 High overarchM, and echoing walks between : 

 i There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, 

 Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 

 At loopholes cut through thickest shade : those leaves 

 They gather'd, broad asAmaionian targe." 



The northern parts of Hindostan have furnished Dr. 

 WalUch with four new species of birch [Betula), and one 

 of the alhed genu^ alder (Alnus). The bark of Betula acu- 

 minata,* Uke that of B. papyracea, or the canoe-birch of 

 America, is apphed to economical purposes by the natives. 

 The epidermis, according to Dr. Wallich, is employed by 

 the mountaineers for writing upon instead of paper. Large 

 quantities are brought down into the plains for covering 

 the inside of the long flexible tubes of the apparatus used 

 for smoking tobacco, called hooka. The Sanscrit name for 

 birch is bhoorja ; and Mr. Graves Haughton, oriental ex- 

 aminer to the honourable East India Company, observes 

 Dr. Wallich, " is of opinion that the word hhoorja is the 

 etymon of birch, and that it is one of the many proofs of the 

 descent of the Saxon part of the English language from the 

 Sanscrita." 



EtJPHOREIACE^. 



We have already mentioned that about three hundred 

 species belonging to this family have been brought from 

 India by Dr. Wallich, among which are very many belong- 

 ing to that difficult genus Phjllanthus. Various species of 

 Cluytia are esteemed for their hard and durable wood of a 

 red or pink colour. Rolllera iinctoria of Roxburgh yields 

 a valuable die. It is a middle-sized tree growing in the 

 mountainous parts of the Circars, having an erect trunk, and 



* Plants Asiaticse Rarjores, vol. ii. tab. 109. j 



