VOL. XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 541 



sending forth an odour like that of elder. To these succeed the fruit, re- 

 sembling grapes, only it is monococ ; first green, then white, afterwards red, 

 and lastly, when ripe, black. The Indians beat the whole plant up with ginger, 

 spread it on flannel, and so take off their corns, and soften their feet; some- 

 times they use only the fumigation of the root burned with buffaloes excrements 

 and the bamboo reed. 



Schembra-valli, and vallia-pira pitica seem to be two wild vines, climbing up 

 the trees in thick woods ; these, like many other plants in the hot climates, are 

 never divested of leaves and fruit, of which there will be both green and ripe at 

 the same time, always flowering and bearing through the whole year under a 

 kind sun. 



Malago-codi is our round, black and white pepper, which are the same only 

 the latter is decorticated. Cattu-tirpali is the long pepper of the Indians, which 

 they chew with calx and the nut taufel, the fruit of a palm named arequa, 

 colouring their spittle with a red tincture. 



Cari villandi, a sort of sarsaparilla, for which it is used by the natives of 

 Malabar ; it is not unlike the American smilax, called jupecanga by Margrave 

 and Piso, and macapatli by Hermandez and Recchus, who make 4 species of 

 sarsa, all bacciferous. 



Mendoni, or the lilium superbum zeylanicum, one of the choicest ornaments 

 of the English and Dutch gardens, growing up to a very high stature. 



To these might be added many other rare plants contained in this 7th part; as 

 4 sorts of Indian ivy, not unlike our trifoliate and quinquefoliate creepers: 

 several exotic night-shades, one resembling our dulcamara ; great variety of 

 battatas, or rizophoras, near akin to our potatoes, being also of general use in 

 the kitchens of India. A curious sort of cuscuta or dodder, running up and 

 choking the boughs of trees. A beautiful scandent reed like the rotang, with 

 many others. 



The 8th part describes and figures 51 herbaceous and arborescent plants, the 

 greatest part of them pomiferous or leguminous. The first 23 species may be 

 all referred to the pumpions, the coloquintidas, the cucumbers, the balsam 

 apples, the passion flowers or maracocks, of all which there are great varieties 

 in both the Indies. 



Modira-caniram contains in its fruit the round flat stone or seed commonly 

 called in our shops the nux vomica: the wood of this tree is said to be the true 

 lignum colubrinum, akin to the caniram of the first tome of this work, which 

 is the famous antidote or specific against the bitings of that Indian serpent, 

 called by the Portuguese cobra copello, whose flat head is marked with the 

 figure of a pair of spectacles. The juice of the leaves, though poisonous. 



