CALOPHYLLUM ELATUM. (Nat. ord. Guttiferce.) 



CALOPHYLLUM. (Linn.) Gen. PI. p. 175.— GEN. CHAE. Flowers often polygamous, perianth composed of 4-12, sepals and petals imbricat- 

 ed in 2-3 series, stamens numerous free or scarcely connate at the base ; filaments short filiform, anthers erect ovate or oblong 2 celled dehiscing longitudi- 

 nally; ovary 1 celled, style longish stigma peltate, ovule 1 erect, drupe indehiscent. Trees with leaves furnished with numerous trausverse parallel nerves. 



^ALOPHYLLUM ELATUM. (Bedd.) Young shoots, panicles and outer sepals ferruginous, leaves elliptic acuminate 

 attenuated at the base, very shining, petioles about 1 inch long, panicles terminal and from the upper axils large many flowered ; 

 sepals 4, two outer ones sub-rotund small, two inner petaloid ; petals 4 ; fruit ovoid pointed about the size of a thrush's egg. 



A very large straight tree with numerous longitudinal cracks down the hark, grows abundantly in most of the moist ghat forests or sholas, 

 in our Western coast from Canara down to Cape Cornorin, and in similar forests on the lower Pulneys, Anamallays, Coorg, Mysore and the 

 Sirumallays— it is never found in dry deciduous forests — it yields the poonspar of commerce and is known by the name of Poonor Poonein 

 Malabar, Siri Poone in South Canara, and Pongoo in the Anamallays — thousands of these trees have lately been destroyed by the axe of Coffee 

 planters in Malabar, Coorg and Travancore ; large quantities still remain but chiefly in very inaccessible places. In the ghat forests of South 

 Canara they are felled by the Forest Department and floated doion rivers to the coast depdts, but the demand for the article does not se<m great, 

 though many years ago a single fine spar has fetched as much as 1,000 Rs. The wood is scarcely Tcnoxon, except as a spar, though it is occasionally 

 used for building and bridge-work by planters — it is reddish, coarse grained but ornamental. The tree has never been planted and would not succeed 

 except in the moist forests on the mountains at an elevation of 1,000 to 4,000 feet ; it flowers in January and February, and the seed falls early 

 in the rains and germinates freely in the dense shade of the shola forests. 



( This tree was for some years supposed to be the Calophylhm anguslifolium of Roxburgh, which is from the Prince of Wales' Island. 





