﻿352 TREATISE ON THE PLANTS OF INDIA. 



Cor. One-petaled. Tube inflated, fleshy. Bor* 

 der nine) or ten, parted. 



St am. Anthers from twelve to twenty-eight, erect, 

 acute, subvillcus. 



Pist. Germ roundish ;S tyle long, awl-shaped. 



Peric. A Drupe, with two or three Nutsf 



Leaves. Oval, somewhat pointed. 



Uses. The tubes esculent, nutritious; yielding, 

 by distillation, an inebriating spirit, which, if the 

 sale of it were duly restrained by law, might be applied 

 to good purposes. A useful oil is expressed from the 

 seed. 



Note. It resembles the Bassia of Koenig. 



Such would be the method of the work which 1 

 recommend ; but even the specimen which I exhibit, 

 might, in skilful hands, have been more accurate. 

 Engravings of the plants may be annexed ; but I have 

 more than once experienced, that the best anatomical 

 and botanical prints give a very inadequate, and some- 

 times a very false notion of the objects which they 

 were intended to represent. As we learn a new lan- 

 guage by reading approved compositions in it with 

 the aid of a Grammar and Dictionary, so we can 

 only study with effect the natural history of vegetables 

 by analysing the plants themselves with the Philoso- 

 phia Botanica, which is the Grammar, and the Genera 

 et Species Plantarum, which may be considered as the 

 Dictionary of that beautiful language, in which Na- 

 ture would teach us what plants we must avoid as nox- 

 ious, and what we must cultivate as salutary ; for that 

 the qualities of plants are in some degree connected 

 with the natural orders and classes of them, a num- 

 ber of instances would abundantly prove. 



