106 



DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. 



Panama and the West Indies. It has been planted by the British in Burmah, 

 where it grows to perfection. 



Etymology. — Hcematoxylon is from the Greek words aXfxa, blood, and ^v\ov, 

 wood, signifying blood-wood, on account of its red culor. Campechianum is 

 the name of the region where it was first obtained. Logwood, the common 

 name, is due to the form in which it is brought to market, i. e., in sliort logs, 

 four feet long and six inches in diameter. For the same reason it is called 

 blockwood. On the continent of Europe it is called Campeachy icuod. 



History. — It grows and thrives best in damp ground. Though a quick 

 grower, the wood is of a fine, hard texture. It Avas known as a dye-wood as 

 early as the middle of the sixteenth century. 



The dyers of that day prepared beautiful colors from this wood, but its 

 chemistry not being understood, they were unable to fix them ; hence its use 



was forbidden by a law, which was 

 rigorously enforced. After about a 

 hundred years the act was repealed or 

 made void by the passage of another, 

 in 1661, Avhich read as follows: "The 

 ingenious industry of the times hath 

 taught the dyers of England the art 

 of fixing colors made of logwood, so 

 that by experience they are found as 

 lasting and serviceable as the color 

 made by any other sort of dye-wood." 

 And logwood from that time became 

 a popular dye. In 1675 the demand 

 for the wood developed a great in- 

 dustry in cutting, preparing, shipping, 

 and freighting the wood. The Span- 

 iards interfered with the English, who 

 had established a colony of choppers 

 on the shores of the Bay of Cam- 

 peachy. The English thereupon made 

 plantations in Jamaica, but the wood 

 produced did not yield the dye of the 

 wood grown in its native swamps. 

 When the tree is 10 years old it is about 20 feet high and 10 inches in 

 diameter; it is then felled, the sap-wood chipped off, cut into pieces 3 to 4 

 feet in length, and shipped to Great Britain or the United States. The 

 best wood is from Honduras, the next best from St. Domingo, and the third 

 class from Jamaica. 



Chemistry. — A blood-red crystalline substance is dispersed through the 

 wood, and this when extracted gives the violet dye. It yields to the chemist 

 a substance indicated by the following formula : C3.2II14O1.. + 2 HO. This 

 A\ hen isolated appears in yellow crystals, and has the taste of liquorice, and 

 was named Hcematoxylon by Chevreuil, a professor of chemistry in Paris, who 

 obtained it. It is not itself a dye ; but when united with certain alkaline 

 bases, and exposed to the action of the air, it produces beautiful red, purple, 

 aad blue colors. 



Use. — It was first used in 1646. Its medicinal properties seem to be a 

 mild astringent and tonic, and it is administered in the form of extract or de- 

 coction for infantile cholera, chronic diarrhoea, and chronic dysentery. 



HCEMATOXYLON CaMPECHIANUM (LogWOOd). 



