37 



* 

 decussate, densely imbricate, appressed, ovate, con- 

 nate, bluntly pointed, glabrous, glanduliferous. Flowers 

 dioecious. Male catkins terminal, solitary ; female 

 ones, lateral. Cones globose, 4-valved ; valves woody, 

 erect, mucronate. 



From the branches and cones of this fine tree, Ceder- 

 1007)1 (Cedar-tree), which grows plentifully in the moun- 

 tainous regions of ClanwiUiam, exudes a gum, which soon 

 hardens in the air, becomes solid, yellowish, and trans- 

 parent, and scarcely differs from the Gwnmi Ollbanam, 

 an article well known in commerce. This gum is suc- 

 cessfully used in the form of fumigations, in gout, rheu- 

 matism, or oedematous swellings, and is also employed for 

 the purpose of compounding plasters or preparing varnish, 

 — Widdringtoriia ciipressoides. Endl. (Thuia cupressoides 

 Thbg.), a shrub pretty common in the neighbourhood of 

 Cape Town, exudes the same substance. 



HOMERIA. Vent. 



(^IridecE.) 



XVI. — 1. MONADELPHIA TRIANDRIA. LIN. SYST. 



84. Homeria collina. Siveef. Root a corm or tube- 

 rous bulb, covered with a fibrous, reticulated, hardened 

 coat. Shaft erect, smooth, paniculately branched. 

 Branches 2-3 flowered. Spathe 2-valved, awned. 

 Radical-leaf, strap-shaped, narrow, caudate, concave, 

 abruptly-pointed, outreaching the shaft. Cauline 

 leaves 2-3 much smaller. Corolla ephemerous, of a 

 yellow or vermilion colour. 



I introduce this plant, the Moraea collina, Thhf/.j (which 

 is known to almost every child in the colony as the Cape 

 Tulip,) not for its thej'apeutical use, but for its obnoxious- 

 ness. The poisonous qualities of its bulbs appear to have 

 been known to some extent years ago, but judging from 

 the rapidity with which death ensued ia a recent case, 

 when they had been eaten by mistake, it must be of a 

 very poisonous kind. To Dr. Laing, Police Surgeon 

 of Cape Town, I am indebted for the particulars of a 

 most melancholy case of poisoning caused by this bulb. 



A malay woman, somewhat advanced in years, with her 

 three grand-children, respectively of the ages of 12, 8, and 

 6, partook, on the 18th September last (1850), of a sup])er, 

 consisting of coffee, fish, and rice, and ate along with this, 



