MYRTACE^. 347 



they may attain the same development as in their native country. 

 The Australian Angophora has nearly the same properties as Euca- 

 lyptus. Metrosideros vera'^ is reputed in the Moluccas to have 

 analogous virtues. Besides a kind of iron-wood, a gum-resin little 

 used, and an esteemed vegetable charcoal, it furnishes a bitter 

 astringent bark, prescribed for catarrh and diarrhoea. The Pome- 

 granate^ (fig. 334-338), is also a very astringent plant. This 

 property is especially marked in the pericarp,^ which is used to tan 

 skins and morocco leather, and which, with the salts of iron, produces 

 an ink of good quality. It is also used for dyeing yellow. The 

 bark of the stem is astringent, as likewise the buds and the flowers, 

 .formerly much employed in human and veterinary medicine. Its 

 root especially is in repute as a cure for tapeworm, and has for half 

 a century recovered the ancient renown it had for a time lost. Its 

 bark is the most active part and is employed almost exclusively as an 

 anthelminthic. The red sweet and acidulous part of the pomegranate 

 which is eaten, and from which refreshing drinks are prepared, 

 represents the exterior hypertrophiate and pulpy coat of the seed. 

 In Napoleona impermlis * (fig. 329-333), there is likewise, under the 

 bark of the fruit, a soft pulp enveloping the seeds,^ which is eaten 

 as refreshing in tropical western Africa. There are many sarcocar- 

 . pons Myrtacece with edible fruit, and the cultivation among us of 

 some Chilian species as fruit trees has been proposed. In Brazil are 

 eaten the berries of Eugenia inocarpa, Uvalha, Vauthieriana, JSfhanica, 

 dulcis, Guabiju, itacolumensis, pisiformis, Myrobalana, supra-axil- 

 laris, obovata, piriformis, variabilis, Vellosiana, Arrahidce,^ edulis, 

 formosa, striata, Lustclmatiana,^ dasyblasta, sulcata, Pitanga, ligus- 

 trina,Michelii, brasiliensis,pseudo-Psidium, dysenterica ; in Guyana, 

 the fruit of E. stuposa, pumilo, Gatinga,^ etc. ; in Chili that of E. 

 Barwinii, apiculata, Luma, Temu; in the Antilles, that of E. 

 Plumieri, cuneata, disticha, fragrans, lineata, etc. Many species in 

 Australia, India, Cochinchina, tropical Africa, and in the Polynesian 



1 Edmph. Serb. Amhoin. iii. 16, t. 7.— Lindl. Schm. Barst. Off. Gew. t. iii. a, J.— Hanb. et 

 Collect, t. 18.— DO. Prodr. iii. 224, n. l.—Nani Flu«ick. Pharmaeogr. 257. 



Val. .^at. Ind. 229, t. 35 (ex Rumph.). — ? Opa ' Malicorium off. 



Metrosideros Lour. Fl. Coehinch. (ed. 1790) 309. ' See p. 333, note 4.— Eobenth. op.cit. 1137. 



—Nmia vera Miq. Fl. Ind.-Bat. i. p. i. 399.— ^ it appears to depend upon the pericarp. 



EOSENTH. op. dt. 922 {Gdy Boimg V&ng des " See Eosenth. op. eit. 926, 927. 



Coohinoh.). ' Rosbnth. 928 (Phylloealyx). 



2 See p. 335,. note 4.— G-tjib. op. eit. iii. 280, » Catinga moaehata Auel. Guim. t. 203. 

 fig. 645. — Hatne, Arm. Gew. x. 35.— Bekg et 



