94 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



except that it has a larger number of leaves than is seen in 

 the latter tree. There are forty-eight in the engraving, which 

 is evidently from a photograph. 



As far as I am aware, this fact has not been noticed by 

 any other traveller, but it is another link of connection between 

 Madagascar and the Malay Peninsula. 



Plants used as Medicines and in the Arts. — The Malagasy 

 have from time immemorial been acquainted with numerous 

 roots, herbs, and trees which they believe to be efficacious in 

 medicine and surgery. These are largely connected with that 

 belief in charms which is the groundwork of their idola- 

 trous worship ; but many of them have real curative powers, 

 and many others would probably prove on examination to be 

 valuable additions to our materia medica. The castor-oil 

 plant, with its beautifully-indented leaves and green fruit 

 covered with minute papillos, is very common in the native 

 gardens, and also grows wild. The fruit or berry is pounded, 

 and a thick green oil extracted for use by boiling. Aloes of 

 great size are among the most ornamental vegetable produc- 

 tions of the interior. The great fleshy leaves considerably 

 exceed in height the stature of a man ; and when the plant 

 blossoms, a great flower-stalk, straight and tapering as a 

 mast, shoots up from the centre of the plant to a height 

 of between twenty and thirty feet, with a crown of flowers, 

 many hundreds in number. The juice is used medicinally, 

 and a fine strong silky thread is prepared from the fibres 

 of the leaves and flower-stalk. A much smaller variety of 

 aloe (called vdhana) is found plentifully on the bare summits 

 of the hills. The leaves are edged with red, and it bears a 

 tall spike of red and yellow flowers. 



In travelling through the skirts of the great forest on the 

 eastern coast, one passes continually through dense thickets 

 of a plant called longozy. This is a species of cardamom 

 (Amomum cardamomum) ; the stem is a tall tapering rod, five 

 or six feet high, with a number of long simple leaves. The 

 i'ruit is a kind of scarlet pod, found near the base of the stem, 

 and contains a sweetish acid pulp of a silky white appearance ; 

 but if one of the small purplish black seeds is accidentally 

 crushed by the teeth, a most unpleasant burning sensation is 



