TAMARIND. 339 



leaflets, without a single one at the end: they are ovate- 

 oblong, quite entire, smooth, sessile, of a bright green, 

 spreading during the day, but closing, so as to lie over 

 each other in the night: they have an acid taste. The 

 flowers come out from the sides of the branches, on a 

 long, upright, common peduncle, six or eight together, 

 in loose bunches, of a yellow colour, veined with a red- 

 dish purple. 



What we style the fruit of the tamarind is only the 

 pistil of the flowers, which become pods, that are thick 

 and compressed, from two to five inches in length, with 

 from two to four or six seeds : these pods become of a 

 reddish brown as they ripen. The fruit is, properly 

 speaking, composed of two pods : the outer pod is fleshy, 

 and the inner one thin as the finest parchment; between 

 these two there is a space of about a quarter of an inch all 

 the way, which is filled up with a soft pulpy substance, of 

 a tart but agreeable taste, which is what we use as the 

 fruit : this, and the stones which are enclosed in the 

 inner pod, are fastened together by a great many slender 

 fibres from the woody stalk which runs through the pod, 

 and conveys the vinous juice, that afterwards hardens, 

 into the viscous matter of the pulp. Lunan says, the 

 tree is exceedingly common in Jamaica, where it grows 

 to vast bulk ; and he gives the following account of 

 preparing the fruit. " The pods are gathered when full 

 ripe, which is known by their fragility, or easy breaking 

 on a small pressure between the finger and the thumb. 

 The fruit is taken out of the pod, cleared from the shelly 

 fragments, and placed in layers in a cask ; and the boil- 

 ing syrup from the teache, or first copper in the boiling- 

 house, just before it begins to granulate, is poured in till 

 the cask is filled : the syrup pervades every part quite to 

 the bottom, and, when cool, the cask is headed for sale. 

 The more elegant method is with sugar, well clarified 



z2 



