MISCELLANEOUS. 379 
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clear the land, fire had been set to these groves. As 
soon as the flame fairly embraced the canes a loud ex- 
plosion succeeded, the general effect of which being that 
of a well sustained skirmish between two hostile parties 
of sharp-shooters. In Ecuador I once saw a sugar-cane 
plantation on fire, but the noise of the bamboo by far 
exceeded that caused by the former. The leaves of the 
Qangawa, a species of pepper (Piper Siriboa, Linn.), 
climbing and rooting like our ivy, and, if report may 
be trusted, those of the Vusolevu (Colubrina Asiatica, 
Brongn.) are used for washing the hair, to clean it and 
destroy the vermin. The Moli kurukuru (Citrus vulgaris, 
Risso) serves the same purpose, a remark also applying 
to the vine called Wa roturotu (Vitis saponaria, Seem.), 
the stem of which, especially the thicker part, is cut in 
pieces from a foot to eighteen inches long, cooked on 
hot stones, and when thus rendered quite soft produces 
in water a rich lather almost equal to that of soap. The 
fruits of the Vago, or bottle-gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris, 
Ser.), are readily converted into flasks for holding oil and 
other fluids, by allowing their pulp to undergo decom- 
position. The juice of the Vetao or Uvitai (Calysaccion 
obovale, Miq.), a useful timber-tree, yields a dye, at pre- 
sent only employed by the natives for changing their 
black hair into red; but when it is remembered that 
its congener, the Calysaccion longifolium, Wight (= C. 
Chinense, Wlprs.), furnishes the buds known as the 
Nag-kassar of Indian commerce, it is not unlikely that 
the Vetao or Uvitai may yet be turned to better uses. 
This enumeration by no means exhausts the catalogue 
of the useful products in which a Flora of about a thou- 
