THE TAMARrND. 



363 



CHAP. XXXVII. 



TnOPICAL FRUITS. 



TheTamarind, ( Tamarindus Indka) . Nat. 

 ord. Leguminosw, Linn. Monodelphia triandria. 



134. 



The Tamarind. 



The name is of Arabic origin, Tamar-kindy. 

 Tliis tree is a native of Arabia and Egypt, and 

 of the East and West Indies. It is a large, 

 spreading, and beautiful tree; the leaves are 

 abruptly pinnate, composed of sixteen or eigh- 

 teen pairs of sessile leaflets; half an inch only in 

 length, and one-sixth of an inch broad; of a 

 bright gi'een colour, downy, oblong, entire, and 

 obtuse. The flowers are in loose bunches of five 

 or six, which come out from the sides of the 

 branches: the calyx is of a straw yellow colour, 

 and deciduous; tlie petals are also yellowish, and 

 beautifully variegated with red veins : the fila- 

 ments are purplish, bearing incumbent brownish 

 anthers. The pods are thick, compressed, and 

 of a dull brown colour when ripe; those from 

 the West Indies from two to five inches long, 

 with two, three, or four seeds ; those from the 

 East Indies are twice as long, and contain 

 five, six, or seven seeds : the seeds in both are 

 flat, angular, shining, and lodged in a dark pulpy 

 matter, wliicli is the edible part of the fruit. In 

 the West Indies the pods are gathered in June, 

 July, and August, when fully ripe; and the fruit 

 being freed from the shelly fragments is placed 

 in layers in a cask, and boiling syrup poured 

 over it till tlie cask is filled; thus the syrup per- 

 vades every part quite do^vn to the bottom; 

 when cool the cask is headed or closed in, and 

 is now fit for sale. Tlie East India tamarinds 

 are darker coloured, and drier, and are said to be 

 preserved without any addition of syrup. Ta- 

 marinds are inodorous, but they have a sharp, 

 penetrating, and agreeable acid taste, softened by 

 a sweetish one. The acid is chiefly the citric. 

 The pulp is frequently employed in medicine; it 

 is cooling, and gently laxative, and is peculiarly 

 grateful in fevers and inflammatory diseases. 



The tr.marind tree is both useful and highly 

 ornamental in those countries where it grows, 

 and where its cool shade is nearly as much prized 

 as its fruit. In this climate tlie plants thrive 

 best in a peat or loamy soil, and root under a 

 glass in sand. They rarely blossom here in our 

 confined hot-houses. 



About forty tons of tamarinds are annually 

 imported into Great Britain. 



Pkickly Pear, (cactus.) The cacti form a 

 natural family of peculiar plants. They belong 

 to the icosandria monogynia of the Linniean ar- 

 rangement. Under the name of cactus, Theo- 

 phrastus describes a spiney plant used as food, 

 which grew in Sicily. The family consists of 

 succulent plants, of perennial duration; gen- 

 erally without leaves, and having the stem or 

 branches jointed. They are for the most part 

 armed with spines in bundles, with which, in 

 many species, bristles are intermixed. These 

 bundles of spines are placed on the top of the 

 tubercles, on the smaller melon thistle, which 

 is tubercled all over, and produces its flowers be- 

 tween the tubercles. In the great melon thistle 

 the spines are ranged in a single row on the ridge 

 of ten ribs. These are of an ovate or globular 

 form. Those on the torch thistle, on the con- 

 trary, are slender, rise up high, and are jointed 

 and branched. Many of them are almost cylin- 

 drical, with from five to ten shallow ribs ; some, 

 however, are square or three cornered. 



The structure of the creeping cereuses is the 

 same with these, except that the stems are weak 

 and cannot support themselves; they therefore 

 seek support from trees, and throw out roots 

 from the stem like ivy. In the Indian figs the 

 branches are jointed, and flattened like the sole 

 of a shoe. The bundles of spines or bristles are 

 scattered over the surface, and the flowers are pro- 

 duced from the edge of the extreme branches. 

 The leaves are alternate, flat, and thick, the 

 prickles are large and stiff, and come out in 

 bundles on the stalk and branches, chiefly at the 

 axils. The flowers spring from the axils also, 

 several together. In this species, and in the 

 Indian fig, the flowers are pitcher-shaped. In 

 the other species they are sub-cylindrical, and 

 longer; in phyllanthus very long. The fniit in 

 some of the sorts is small, like currants; but in 

 most it is larger, and shaped like a fig, whence 

 their name of Indian fig. 



The Turk's Cap, or Melox Thistle, (cactus 

 melocactus.) This species appears like a large 

 flesh green melon, with deep ribs, the elevations 

 set all over with knots of strong sharp thorns. 

 When divided through the middle the inside is 

 found to be a soft, green, fleshy substance, very 

 full of moisture. The flowers and fi-uit are 

 produced in circles round the upper part of the 

 cap. Some of those which have been brought 

 to England have been more than a yard in cir- 



