TEE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 239 



REMARKS. 



I have said on the authority of Hooker and Kurz that this tree is 

 deciduous. I can also add my own humble testimony to that effect. 

 In Paxton's Botanical Dictionary, however, and in Johnson's Gar- 

 dener's Dictionary, the plant is said to be an evergreen. I presume 

 that this description is taken from the stove-plants of the marking-nut 

 that are reared in the English nurseries. I think it requires the 

 tropical heat and open air jungle-life to give it its full character of a 

 deciduous tree. Balfour observes that the natural order Anacardia- 

 cece is unknown in Australia (Manual of Botany, p. 473, 1875). 

 Hooker, however, notes that the Semecarpus anacardium is to be found 

 in North Australia. Baillon also says that the representatives of the 

 genus Semecarpus are to be seen in the Oceania, which of course 

 includes Australia. Among introduced plants belonging to the 

 Natural Order Anacardiacece I have seen the mango grow in the 

 beautiful Government Gardens of Sydney. There are°several species 

 of the genus Rhus (Sumach) also growing there. The mango does 

 not evidently thrive there, and bears very poor fruit, if at all. But 

 several of the American species of Rhus seemed to me to be in very 

 good condition, as if born to the soil. The northern part of Australia 

 would not be unnatural soil for the growth of the different species 

 and genera of the Natural Order Anacardiacece. It is therefore diffi- 

 cult to understand how Professor Balfour made such a wholesale 

 statement as to say that the Natural Order Anacardiacece is unknown 

 m Australia. Perhaps the information we now possess was not avail- 

 able when he wrote his work. 



The following are the synonyms as given in Part I of the Index 

 Kewensis compiled by B. Daydon Jackson at the expense of the late 

 Charles Robert Darwin of sacred memory, under the direction of Sir 

 Joseph Hooker (p. 115) : — 



Anacardium latifolium.— 'Lam. Encyc, I., 139 (III, t. 208) 



A, longifolium. — Lam. 1. c. 



A. officinale. — Pritz. Ind. Ic, 59. 



A. orientale.—Aaet. Ex Steud. Nom., Ed. II., i. 82. 



A. o-jficinarum. — Gaertn. Fruct., i., 192, t. 40. 



A. solitarium.-— Stokes, Bot. Mat. Med., II., 159, 



