Botanical Magazine. 451 



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This plant, like all of the neighbouring order of .Malvaceae, is emollient and 

 mucilaginous in all its parts. The leaves, dried and reduced to powder, 

 constitute lah, a favourite article with the natives, and which they mix 

 daily with their food, for the purpose of diminishing the excessive per- 

 spiration to which they are subject in those climates, and even the Euro- 

 peans find it serviceable in cases of diarrhoea, fevers, and other maladies. 



" The fruit is, perhaps, the most useful part of the tree. Its pulp is 

 slightly acid and agreeable, and frequently eaten ; while the juice is 

 expressed from it, mixed with sugar, and constitutes a drink which is 

 valued as a specific in putrid and pestilential fevers. Owing to these cir- 

 cumstances, the fruit forms an article of commerce. In Bowdich's account 

 of Banjole it is mentioned that this fruit possesses an agreeably acid 

 flavour, and, being very abundant, it forms a principal article of food 

 among the natives, who season many of their dishes with it, especially a 

 kind of gruel, made of corn, and called root/, Mr. Bowdich farther 

 observes that this tree loses its leaves before the periodical rains come on. 

 The Mandinjos convey the fruit to the eastern and more southern districts 

 of Africa, and through the medium of the Arabs it reaches Morocco, and 

 even Egypt. If the fruit be decayed or injured, it is burned : the lees are 

 mixed with rancid oil of palm, and the negroes use it instead of soap." 



.Malva Morem'?', a native of Italy, about Naples. " Whether or not this 

 plant may be a variety of M. Jlcae v a must be left for future observation." 

 — Croton castaneifolium ; Euphorbiacece. An annual from Trinidad, with 

 " nothing to recommend it for cultivation except in the gardens-of the 

 curious." — Oncidium papilio. An orchideous bulb, of a purple colour, 

 with purple brown coriaqeous leaves, spotted and blotched with green, and 

 solitary flowers, of a bright yellow colour, with red brown blotches ; large 

 and beautiful. From Trinidad to the Glasgow botanic garden ; where it 

 flowered in 1826. It is among the most singular and beautiful of the exten- 

 sive family of epiphytes with which our hot-houses are now so abundantly 

 stored." — O'robus sessilifolius. A hardy perennial from Tauria, with 

 grasslike leaves, and handsome purple flowers in July. — Neottia aphyllaj 

 Orchidese. From Trinidad to the Glasgow botanic garden. " In a state 

 of cultivation, entirely destitute of leaves; and the whole plant of a sin- 

 gularly lurid reddish green colour." 



No. XIV. for February, contains 

 2798 to 2804. — -ZVepeuthes distillatoria. A noble specimen from Dr. 

 Graham, grown in the Edinburgh botanic garden, and beautifully 

 engraved and coloured of the natural size. " Our plant differs from the 

 N. distillatoria of Loureiro, in the lid never closing after it once opens ; 

 but the power of alternate opening and closing, even in his plant, was 

 probably imaginary, as his statement of the pitchers receiving the night- 

 dews certainly is. The fluid which they contain is undoubtedly a secre- 

 tion, but for what purpose does not appear. It is stated to have nearly 

 filled one third of the pitcher in Messrs. Loddiges' plant ; but with us it 

 never much exceeded a drachm." — Gonolobus niger. A twiner from 

 Mexico, with heart-shaped oblong leaves, and deep black purple flowers 

 in October. Stove. Whether it be a ligneous or herbaceous plant, what 

 may be its duration, its height, or year of introduction, is not mentioned, 

 a deficiency of which we have frequent occasion to complain. — Polemd- 

 nium Richardsom. A beautiful little perennial, with elegantly cut leaves 

 and blue flowers, gathered by Dr. Richardson, in 1825, in deep sandy soil, 

 on Great Bear Lake, in 66° north latitude, and which flowered in a cold- 

 frame in the Edinburgh botanic garden, in October last. It was also 

 gathered by Mr. Menzies, during his celebrated voyage with Captain Van- 

 couver, on the north-west coast of America. — Pothos macrophylla. Stove, 



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