224 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 



tree, growing to the height of forty feet ; but its girth is 

 entirely out of proportion to its height, some trees being 

 thirty feet in diameter, becoming contracted towards the 

 top. Humboldt speaks of it as the " oldest organic monu- 

 ment of our planet ;" and Adanson, a botanical traveler, 

 in 1794, made a calculation that one of these trees, thirty 

 feet in diameter, must have been at least five thousand 

 one hundred and fifty years old. The wood is soft, and 

 the negroes cut out chambers in the trees, which they use 

 as places of interment. It produces a large, oblong, woody, 

 indehiscent, capsular fruit, from eight to twelve inches, or 

 more, long, shaped like a gourd, covered with a velvety 

 down, and containing numerous seeds, the size of large 

 peas, imbedded in pulp, which ultimately becomes dry 

 and of a corky nature. It forms a great part of the food 

 of the natives. Excellent ropes are made of the bark. As 

 an example of the slow growth of this plant, one at Kew, 

 though more than eighty years of age, was only four and a 

 half feet high, but with the characteristic swollen, gouty 

 base, six to seven inches in diameter." Several orna- 

 mental plants, as Mallows {Malva), Rose Mallow {Hibis- 

 cus), Hollyhock {Althma), Callirrhoe, etc., belong to this 

 family. 



23. Ternstroemiaceee. The Camellia family com- 

 prises two hundred and sixty, mostly tropical, trees and 

 shrubs. A common representative in conservatories is 

 Camellia Japoniea from China and Japan. The most 

 important member of the family is the Tea-tree {Thea 

 Ghinensis'), cultivated by the Chinese for ages. It is an 

 evergreen, eight to fifteen feet high, and its leaves, picked, 

 dried, pressed, rolled, etc., constitute the tea of commerce. 



24. Caryophyllacese. The Pink family. Mostly 



