304 BOTANICAL OBSERVATIONS 



authority of Rhfepe, who has exactly written that 

 word in Malabar letters. As to his Bra'hmanical name 

 I'doni, my vocabularies have nothing more like it 

 than Tilaca, to which Cshiraca and Sri' mat are the 

 only synonyma. 



57. Na'gace'sara: 



Syn. Champeya, Cesara; Canchana, or any other 



name of gold. 

 Vulg. Nagasar. 

 Linn. Iran Me sua. 



To the botanical descriptions of this delightful 

 plant, I need only add, thai the tree is one of the 

 most beautiful on earth, and that the delicious odour 

 of its blossoms justly gives them a place in the qui- 

 ver of Ca'made'va. In the poem, called Nats- 

 liadha^ there is a wild but elegant couplet, where 

 the poet compares the white of the Na'gace'sara, from 

 which the bees were scattering the pollen of the 

 numerous gold- coloured anthers, to an alabaster- 

 wheel, on which Ca'ma was whetting his arrows, 

 while sparks of lire were dispersed in every di- 

 rection. Surely, the genuine appellation of an In- 

 dian plant should be substituted for the corrupted 

 name of a Syrian physician, who could never have 

 feen it : and, if any trivial name were necessary to dis- 

 tinguish a single species, a more absurd one than iron 

 could not possibly have been selected for a flower 

 with petals like silver and anthers like gold. 



58. S'a lm alt : 



Syn. Ficlih'ila\ Purqn} 7 Mocha') SCliira'yush. 

 Vulg. SemeL 



Linn, 



