TEE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 271 



have found that some English writers say, in translating these words, 

 that the odour is " heavy.''' I do not know whether to an Englishman 

 or to a Briton, 1 should say, the word " heavy" is capable of conveying 

 the exact sense of the Latin term " gravis''' when it is made to mean 

 " heavy." Here for a moment I may crave the indulgence of my 

 strictly Botanical reader if I venture to try and determine the mean- 

 ing of the Latin word " gravis " as used by Rheede with reference to 

 the odour of the root bark, or, for the matter of that, the odour of 

 anything whatsoever. I may here state, for the information of such of 

 my readers as do not know Latin, that the Latin adjective " gravis,^'' as 

 applied to smell or flavour, means " strong," " unpleasant," or " offen- 

 sive." The English rendering of it, as used by some in the word 

 " heavy," conveys no meaning. According to the Latin Lexicogra- 

 pher Andrews, to whom, since 1866, I am much under obligation for 

 my limited knowledge of Latin, the term " gravis " also means litter. 

 This meaning is implied in the works of M. Terentius Yarro, a Roman 

 writer on Husbandry, who flourished in the last century before the 

 Christian era. According to Rheede, the taste of the leaves is acrid, 

 but they have no odour. It may be noted in passing that the des- 

 cription of both Lindley and Brandis, to the effect that the root of 

 Alangium Lamarckii (be it known under any of the synonyms I have 

 detailed above) is aromatic, appears to conflict with the description of it 

 given by Rheede. No Latin lexicographer has, so far as I know, given 

 to the Latin word '^gravis" the English equivalent of " aromatic.'" Here 

 I crave the assistance of better Latin scholars, indifferent and poor as I 

 am in my knowledge of the Latin tongue, which I studied thirty years 

 ago, and of which I am no better master now than I was then. In 

 describing the root Brandis is, in my opinion, more accurate (as he 

 always is in all his Botanical utterances) when he says that the root is 

 aromatic — for I do not think that the odour of the root is in any way 

 " strong " or " unpleasant"' — I can positively say it is not " offensive'^ 

 With regard to the action of the root on the alimentary canal, 

 Rheede distinctly says it is cathartic. It produces, says he, serous 

 and cathartic discharges from the intestinal canal.* If such is the 



• In the original Latin text of Rheede the term " alviis " is used, which I think meana 

 not only " i^e 6e% " or "■abdomen,^' but also the ^^ stomach and entrails." " Astringerc 

 aZyM?«" (Celsus Ij 3) means to " make costive," i.e., to bind the entrails — produce consti- 

 pation.— K.R.K. 



