452 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
perties varying according to their degree of maturity. Ripe, they 
are eaten in Egypt and Arabia under the name of Desert dates 
(Dattes du désert). They are then sweet, and by fermentation give 
an alcoholic intoxicating drink. At an earlier period they are pun- 
gent, bitter, and purgative. They were formerly named Myrobalans 
d'Egypte ; their embryo furnishes a large quantity of peculiar oil. 
In the seeds of Zrvingia is also found a particular kind of fat, obtained 
especially from a widely-spread species found on the western coast 
of tropical Africa, from Sierra Leone to Gaboon, Irvingia gabonensis,’ 
and known under the name of Dika bread (pain de Dika). This is a 
brown mass, very similar to cocoa in colour, odour, and taste ; it 
is formed of seed coarsely pounded, and made into a block of 
porphyritic appearance, on the bottom of which are whitish 
impressions. Nearly eight-tenths of it are constituted by a kind 
of Dika butter (duerre de Dika), which is separated by boiling in 
water, and is very similar in taste and smell to Cocoa butter.’ Cueorum 
is also useful: C. ¢ricoccum’ (figs. 493-496) has bitter leaves, and 
juice purgative, drastic, antiseptic; C. pulverulentum, of the Cana- 
ries, still more bitter, is a febrifuge, and its bark is said to be 
substituted for that of Cinchona. The Stimmias are slightly bitter 
and aromatic; the buds of S. japonica’ are used in their native 
country to perfume tea. 
But the most grateful essences met with in this family are col- 
lected in the glandular vesicles of most of the 4urantiee.’ The bitter 
principle is not quite absent, especially at a certain age, and we 
know how much it is developed in the young fruits of the Orange, 
Seville Orange, and Lemon trees, &c., with which alcoholic, tonic, 
aperient, stomachic, and even febrifugal drinks are prepared; or in 
the zests of their ripe fruits, which serve the same purpose. The 
rind of the common lemon’ is bitter and stimulant; it is used in 

species, or perhaps a variety of the preceding,a  Lamx., Fl. Fr., ii, 682 (vulg. Garoupe, petit 
native of India, having the same properties. 
1H. BN., in Adansonia, viii. 95.—TI. Bar- 
tert Hook. r., in Trans, Linn, Soc., xxiii. (1860), 
167.—Ou1v., Fl. Trop. Afr., i. 314.—GuIB., 
Drog. Simpl., éd. 6, iti. 566.—Mangifera gabo- 
nonsis AUBR.-LEC., ex O’RORKE, in Rep. Pharm., 
xxxi. (1858), 275 (vulg. Oba, Iba of Gaboon, 
wild Mango of the English colonies). 
2 OuDEM., in Journ. Prakt. Chem., xxi. 356. 
8 L., Spec., 49.—DC., Prodr., ii. 84, n. 1.— 
Gren, & Gopr., F1. de Fr., i. 341.—RoOSENTR., 
Syn. Pl. Diaph., 869.—Chamelea tricoccos 
Olivier, Olivier nain). 
4 VENT., Jard. de Cels., t.77.— WEBB, Phyt. 
Canar., t. 66. 
5 Tuuns., Fl. Jap., 4; Nov. Gen. 57.— 
Banks, Ze. Kempf., t. 5.— Ilex Skimmia 
SPRENG., Syst., i. 495. 
6 Enpu., Enchirid., 549. — Linz, F1. 
Med., 161; Veg. Kingd., 458. — ROSENTH. 
Syn. Pl. Diaph., 755, 1150.—Gu18., Drog. 
Simpl., 6d. 6, iii. 618.—H. BN., Aurant., 49. 
7 Fruit of Citrus Medica Limon GALLES. 
(Tr. Citrus (1811), 105) or Lemon-tree, ac- 
