THE SUB-TROPICAL ZONE. 115 



dian-built ships, constructed of this wood, often 

 last forty years or more in those seas, where 

 our ships are ruined in five years. The mango 

 (Mangifera Indica) produces a fruit as highly 

 valued in those warm climates as the peach is 

 in England. The Palma Christi, or castor oil 

 plant, (Eidnus communis) is cultivated exten- 

 sively in the East Indies, United States, and 

 West Indies, for the sake of the oil obtained 

 from its seeds, (castor oil,) which is so largely 

 used in medicine. It attains in its native 

 climate the height of a tree, though in this 

 country it can only be grown as an annual, 

 three or four feet high. It is of very rapid 

 growth, and is now generally supposed to be 

 the plant which our translators have rendered 

 " a gourd," which " came up in a night, and 

 perished in a night," for the comfort and the 

 instruction of Jonah ; though so rapid a growth 

 as this must have been miraculous. The 

 fathers, Jerome and Augustine, differed so much 

 as to the particular plant intended by this 

 gourd, that we are told from words they pro- 

 ceeded to blows. 



Some of the grasses of India are very fra- 

 grant. One (Andropogon sclicenantlms) is called 

 the lemon grass, and yields a perfume very 

 much like the lemon plant, or verbena, (Aloysia 

 titriodora,) which is so often cultivated in our 

 gardens and cottage windows. The essential 

 oil distilled from it is imported into this coun- 

 try, and used in perfumery. Another species 

 of the same genus (Andropogon calamus aro- 



