200 LEGUMINOS^. 



Kurnool Hills, Cuddapah and North Arcot (W. and N.W. of Madras). 

 The tree is now being raised in regular plantations.^ 



The wood is a staple article of produce, and the felling of the trees 

 is strictly controlled by the forest inspectors. The fine trunk-wood is 

 highly valued by the natives for pillars in their temples and other 

 buildings, as well as for turnery. The stumps and roots are exported 

 to Europe as a dye-stuff, mostly from Madras. 



History — It is difficult to tell whether the appellation Red Sandal- 

 wood used in connexion with Yellotu and White Sandal-wood by some of 

 the earlier writers on drugs, was intended to indicate the inodorous dye- 

 wood under notice or the aromatic wood of a species of Santaliiin. Yet 

 when Marco Polo' alludes to the sandal- wood imported into China, and 

 to the red sandal ("Cendal verTneil") which grows in the island of 

 Necuveran (Nicobar), it is impossible to doubt that he intended by this 

 latter name some such substance as that under notice. 



Garcia de Orta, who wrote at Goa in the middle of the 16th century, 

 clearly distinguished the fragrant sandal of Timor from the red inodorous 

 wood of Tenasserim and the Coromandel Coast. It is I'emarkable that 

 the wood of Pt. santalinus is distinguished to the present day in all the 

 languages of India by names signifying red-coloured sa7idal-ivood,th.ough. 

 it has none whatever of the peculiarities of the odorous wood of 

 Santcdum. Red Sanders Wood was formerly supposed to possess medi- 

 cinal powers : these are now disregarded, and it is retained in use only 

 as a colouring ajjent. 



During the middle ages, it was used as well as alkanet for culinary 

 purposes, such as the colouring of sauces and other articles of food. 

 The price in England between 1326 and 1399 was very variable, but 

 on an average exceeded 3s. per lb.* Many entries for the purchase of 

 Red Sanders along with spices and groceries, occur in the accounts of 

 the Monastery of Durham, a.d. 1530-34.^ 



Description — The wood found in English commerce is mostly that 

 of the lower parts of the stem and that of the thickest roots. It 

 appears in the market in ponderous, irregular logs, rarely exceeding the 

 thickness of a man's thigh and commonly much smaller, 3, 4 or 5 feet in 

 length; they are without bark or sapwood, and are externally of a dark 

 colour. The internal wood is of a deep, rich, blood-red, exhibiting in 

 transverse section zones of a lighter tint, and taking a fine polish. 



At the present day, druggists generally buy the wood rasped into 

 small chips, which are of a deep reddish brown hue, tasteless and nearly 

 without odour. 



Microscopic Structure — The wood is built up for the greater part 

 of long pointed cells, having thick walls (libriform). Through this 

 ligneous tissue, there are scattered small groups of very large vessels. 

 In a direction parallel to the circumference of the stem, there are less 



* [Beddome], Report of the Conservator ^ Rogers, Agriculi^ire and Prices in 



of Forests, for 1869-70, Madras, 1870, pp. England, 1866, i. 631, ii. 545, &c.— The 



3. 39. 123 ; for figure of the tree, see Flora average price of a sheep during the same 



Sylvatica of Southern India of the same period was about \s. 6d. 



author, tab. xxii. * Durhavi Hoiisehold Book, Surtees See. 



^ Pauthier, Livre de Marco Polo, 580 — 1844.215; also Pegge, Form of Cury, Lond. 



Pt. indicus Willd. grows in the adjacent 1780. p. xv. 

 Andaman Islands. 



