Queries and Answers. 357 



" In its native wilds, the Madura is conspicuous by showy fruit, in size 

 and external appearance resembling the largest oranges. The leaves are of 

 an oval form, with an undivided margin, and the upper surface of a smooth 

 shining green ; they are five or six inches long, and from two to three 

 wide. The wood is of a yellowish colour, uncommonly fine and elastic, 

 affording the material most used for bows by all the savages from the Mis- 

 sissippi to the Rocky Mountains. How far towards the north its use ex- 

 tends we have not been informed, but we have often seen it among the 

 lower tribes of the Missouri, who procure it in trade from the Osages, and 

 the Pawnees of Red River. The bark, fruit, &c. when wounded, discharges 

 a copious milky juice, which soon dries on exposure, and is insoluble in 

 water, containing, probably, like the milky juices of many of the urticeae, a 

 large intermixture of caoutchouc or gum elastic. 



The fruit consists of radiating, somewhat woody fibres, terminating in a 

 tuberculated and slightly papillose surface. In this fibrous mass are dissemi- 

 nated the seeds, which are nearly as large as those of a quince. The tree 

 rises to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet, dividing near the ground 

 into a number of long, slender, and flexuose branches. It inhabits deep and 

 fertile soils in vallies. The Arkansa appears to be the northern limit of the 

 range of the Maclura, and neither on that river, nor on the Canadian, 

 does the tree, or the fruit, attain so considerable a size as in warmer lati- 

 tudes. On many specimens of the fruit examined by Major Long, at the 

 time of his visit to Red River, in 1817, several were found measuring five 

 and a half inches in diameter." (James's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains.) 



The following letter from Mr. Nuttall to A. B. Lambert, Esq., dated Li- 

 verpool, April 12, 1824, gives additional information respecting this tree. 

 " I have herewith sent you the drawings of the Maclura, and have but little 

 to add concerning it besides what is already before the public. I have, how- 

 ever, since that publication seen the male flowers with which I had been 

 unacquainted. They are produced in partly sessile clusters, probaby twelve 

 or more together in a very short raceme, and consist each of a four-parted 

 greenish calyx, including three, but more commonly four stamens, about the 

 length of,, or a little exceeding, the calyx. 



The trees often attain the height of sixty feet or upwards, having 

 spreading branches, thickly clothed with a foliage of the most vivid and 

 shining green. The flowers are very inconspicuous and nearly green, or 

 with a slight tinge of yellow. The bark and fruit, on incision, gives out a 

 milky sap ; that of the fruit is aromatic, but not agreeable to the taste. 

 Although found spontaneous and abundant on the immediate borders of 

 Red River, I cannot learn that any individual has ever seen or tasted its 

 ripe fruit. These, according to the report of Major Long, (See his Narra- 

 tive, vol.ii.p.l58.)arequite as large as those oftheShaddock tree,yellow,and 

 very beautiful to the eye ; but in his opinion always unpleasant to the taste. 

 As to their being juiceless (an assertion made by this narrator), the very 

 appellation of Osage, i. e. orange, independent of my own testimony, ought to 

 have qualified the contradiction. From two or three of the fruit which I 

 described as seen growing in Mr. Choteau's garden at St. Louis, in 1810, I 

 expressed about half a pint of a milky sweetish fluid, which, unlike most 

 lactescent saps, quickly separated into a clear liquid, and a subsiding fecu- 

 lent matter, almost appearing like the action of coagulation in milk. 1 men- 

 tion this fact, merely to show that the fruit is not hard and dry, as stated 

 by Mr. James. Indeed, from all I can yet learn, the state of the ripe fruit is 

 entirely unknown. 



The wood is so completely like that of the Fustick (Morus tinctoria) that 

 it would be difficult to tell them apart ; it is equally useful as a yellow dye, 

 and its strength recommends it to the natives for bows." 



W. S writes " I should be glad to be informed, through the medium of the 

 Gardener's Magazine, the price and description of a botanical microscope 



