78 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



of tlie attack of the disease which is essentially chronic, the branches 

 are not very short nor the leaves very small, but as the malady advances, 

 the new leaves which appear at each successive season, become 

 gradually more and more dwarfish in appearance, the branches turn- 

 ing knotty and producing new smaller ones. The old trees on which 

 such phenomena take place, are covered with leaves of a paler ooloui* 

 and of rather diminished size, though not so small as those on the 

 abnormal branches. The parts affected die a premature death ; this 

 is however a slow process. 



The Pipree sheds its leaves in the cold season and renews them. 

 This fact was observed by me last year, and in a short time confirm- 

 ed by the experience of the natives and Europeans. This renewal 

 takes place also in the abnormal branch, and continues from season to 

 season for several years with this difference, that new leaves do not 

 shoot out at each season or every 2nd or even 3rd from the branch- 

 lets, at their origin from the parent branch ; thus they gradually 

 become destitute of leaves from the lower or first attacked part to 

 the free extremity and, at last, die. After a time the whole branch 

 dies thus, and the dead branch, now dark brown or black, remains 

 attached for a long time to the tree, resembling a broom from a 

 distance. Now and then it happens that certain branches at 

 their origin from a parent branch becoming thus affected form 

 balls of leaves, and die in the manner described above. The paren 

 branch, however, if strong and tolerably large, continues to gi'ow, but 

 ultimately it too becomes attacked and falls a victim to the morbid 

 action which appears to have been extended from the primary or 

 first attacked branchlets. It is curious that this process goes on 

 whilst the contiguous parts of the tree are healthy. It is a well- 

 known fact that in animals the death of the whole body or of a part 

 of it begins to manifest itself almost always at the extremities far- 

 thest from the centre. Symptoms of leprosy, senile gangrene, and of 

 various kinds of paralysis in man, are first observed at the tips of the 

 toes and of the fingers. So also does a tree or a branch of a tree show 

 signs of death at its extremity farthest from the roots. Just the 

 reverse is the case with Pipree. You will observe from these speci- 

 mens and photographs that the lower part of the affected branch is swol- 

 len,nodose, dark-brown, or a shy-coloured and destitute of leaves, whilst 



