THE PEA TRIBE. 127 



Few of them are ever seen in this country, but in 

 foreign climes they are exceedingly abundant. Cassias 

 tliemselves, some of which yield the well-known medi- 

 cine called Senna, are common in all parts of the 

 tropics ; the Logwood, the Tamarind, the Barbadoes 

 flower-fence (Poinciana), the brilliancy of whose 

 orange-coloured flowers is too intense to be steadily 

 looked upon, the fragrant Asoca Tree of India 

 (Jonesia), which Botanists have consecrated as a floral 

 monument to one of the most learned of Oriental 

 scholars, and the Judas Tree (Cercis siliquastrum), 

 which makes all Turkey put on a violet robe, in its 

 flowering season, belong to genera of the Cassia 

 division. To these may be added, as other remark- 

 able plants, the horrid Acacias (Gleditschias), whose 

 trunks are covered with stifi^ branching spines, and 

 which are so very remarkable in cold countries for 

 the airy Mimosa-like appearance of their foliage ; 

 the Carob Tree, or Algaroba (Ceratonia SiKqua), 

 the sweet pods of which are used for food in Spain, 

 and whose seeds are supposed to have been the ori- 

 ginal carat weight of the goldsmiths, the Tonga-bean 

 plant (Dipterix odorata), with the perfume of whose 

 seeds you are doubtless acquainted ; and, finally, 

 Bauhinias, those large climbers which hang among 

 the trees of tropical forests, like enormous cables, 

 twisting round trunks and branches till they utterly 

 destroy them. 



The third division of the Pea tribe is that of Mi- 

 mosas. Figure to yourself a plant with the sepals 

 and petals of the Cassia group, only so small as 



