222 LEGUMINOSiE. 



the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius, with the latter of whom he is said 

 to have visited Britain, A.D. 43, uses the expression " Casice rufce flstu- 

 larum" in the receipt for a collyrium. Galen^ describing the different 

 varieties of cassia, mentions that called GizP (y/^e/9) as being quite like 

 cinnamon or even better ; and also names a well-known cheaper sort, 

 having a strong taste and odour which is called fistula, because it is 

 rolled up like a tube. 



Oribasius, physician to the Emperor Julian in the latter half of the 

 4th and beginning of the 5th century, describes Cassia fistula as a hark 

 of which there are several varieties, having pungent and astringent 

 properties (" ovmes cassias fistulcc vires habent acriter exalfacientes et 

 stringentes "), and sometimes used in the place of cinnamon.* 



It is doubtless the same drug which is spoken of by Alexander 

 Trallianus* as Kacrlag crvpiy^ (casia fistula) in connexion with costus, 

 pepper and other aromatics ; and named by other Greek writers as 

 Kacr/a arvpiyycoSr]? (casia fistularis). Alexander still more distinctl}^ 

 calls it also Kao-Za aiyvrrTia.^ 



The tree under examination and its fruit were exactly described in 

 the beginning of the 13th century by Abul Abbas Annabati of Sevilla f 

 the fruit, the Cassia Fistula of modern medicine, is noticed by Joannes 

 Actuarius, who flourished at Constantinople towards the close of the 

 13th century ; and as he describes it with particular minuteness,'^ it is 

 evident that he did not consider it well known. The drug is also 

 mentioned by several writers of the school of Salernum. The tree 

 would appear to have found at an early period its way to America, if 

 we are correct in referring to it the Cassia Fistula enumerated by Petrus 

 Martyr among the valuable products of the New World.* The drug 

 was a familar remedy in England in the time of Turner, 1568." 



The tree was figured in 1553 by the celebrated traveller Belon who 

 met with it in the gardens of Cairo, and in 1592 by Prosper Alpinus 

 who also saw it in Egypt. 



Description — The ovary of the flower is one-celled with numerous 

 ovules, which as they advance towards maturity become separated by 

 the growth of intervening septa. The ripe legume is cylindrical, dark 

 chocolate-brown, 1^ to 2 feet long by | to 1 inch in diameter, with a 

 strong short woody stalk, and a blunt end suddenly contracted into a 

 point. The fibro-vascular column of the stalk is divided into two 

 broad parallel seams, the dorsal and ventral sutures, running doAvn the 

 whole length of the pod. The sutures are smooth, or slightly striated 

 longitudinally; one of them is formed of two ligneous bundles coalescing 



^ De Ant'idot. i. c. 14. cena adjicimus, atque quippiam fer^ nigrse 



2 Noticed likewise among the commodities nominatae casise. Est autem fructus ejus 



liable to duty at Alexandria in the 2nd cen- fistulus et oblongus, nigrum intus humorem 



tury. — Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, coneretum gestans, qui haudquaquam una 



ii. 712. continuitatecoaluit, sedexintervallo tenui- 



^ Physica Hildegardis, Argent. 1533. 227. bus lignosisque membranulis dirimitur, 



* Libri xii. J. Guinterio interprete, Basil. , habens ad speciei propagationem, grana 

 1556. lib. vii. c. 8. qusedam seminalia, siliquse illi quie nobis 



^Puschmann's edition (quoted in the ap- innotuit, adsimilia." — Meihodus Medendi, 



pendix) i. 435. lib. t. c. 2. 



* Meyer, Geschichteder Botanik, iii. (1856). ^ De nvper sub D. Carolo reperiis insidis, 

 226. Basil. 1521. 



7 '* Quemadmodum si ventrem mollire " Herhall, part. 3. 20. 



fuerit animus, pruna, et praecipu^ Damas- 



