AILANTHUS MALABARICA. (Nat. order Simarubese.) 



AlLANTHUS. Deaf. — GEN. CHAR. Flowers polygamous, calyx small 5 lobed, lobes equal imbricate, petals 5 patent valvate or slightly 

 imbricate at the sides with the tips incurved, disk 10 lobed, stamens 10 in the male flowers, (10 or fewer or none in the female or hermathrodite) inserted 

 at the base of the disk, filaments very short or filiform without scales, ovary of 2-5 carpels more or less conuate (rudimentary in the male flowers) carpels 

 compressed 1 celled, styles as many as the carpels consolidated into 1 with plumose stigmas, often more or less distinct towards the base, ovules solitary 

 in each cell attached to the ventral suture below the apex, fruit of 1 to 5 oblong membranous samarje thickened in the centre round the single seed, seed 

 flattened, suspended, testa membranaceous, albumen scanty, cotyledons leafy nearly orbicular, radicle short superior. Large trees, leaves alternate pinnate, 

 leaflets many pair, flowers small in terminal panicles. 



AlLANTHUS MaLABARICA. (DC.) A lofty tree, bark rough and often studded with bright reddish grains of resin 

 leaves equally pinnate, quite glabrous 15-20 inches long, leaflets 6-10 subopjiosite or opposite pair commencing a little above the base 

 of the petiole, semiovate from a very unequal base gradually attenuated into a long acumination, glabrous on both sides, shining above, 

 very pale beneath, (veins pinnate forked and looped near the margin) 3-7 inches long by 1-1 J broad, petiolules 2-4 lines long ; panicles 

 axillary much branched nearly as long as the leaves and occasionally leafy at the base of the lowest ramification, slightly puberulous or 

 glabrous, calyx slightly puberulous and ciliate, petals slightly imbricate at the edges and with incurved tips, male flowers smaller than 

 the female, disk 10 lobed with a minute 3 lobed rudiment of an ovary in its centre, stamens much exserted, much longer than the corol, 

 anthers oblong attached by the centre of the back ; female flowers with 10 sterile stameus alternately shorter, all much shorter than 

 the corol, anthers sterile saggitate basifixed, disk large irregularly lobed or warted. Samara 3-3| inches long by 10-13 lines broad. 

 DC. Prod. ii. p. 89. Pongelion, Eheed. Mai. 6. t. 25. 



A very lofty tree, common in the dense moist forests of the Western ghats of the Madras Presidency (up to 3,000 feet ) from $>. Canara 

 down to Cape Comorvn, also in Ceylon ; in S. Canara it is called Doop or Baga Doop, matti pal on the Annamnllays, andKumbalu or Wal biling 

 in Ceylon, in Travancore the tree is commonly planted, and is very ornamental, a fragrant resinous balsam (known as mutti pal) exudes from 

 the trunk, reduced to powder mixed with milk and strained it is given by native doctors in dysentery and said to be a first rate remedy, the 

 bark has a pleasant slightly bitter taste and is used medicinally by the natives as a febrifuge and tonic. Mr. Broughton has favored me with, 

 the following report on some of the resin submitted to him for analysis. 



" This resin as commonly met with is dark brown or grey in color, is plastic, opaque and has an agreeable smell. It contains much 

 impurity. The pure resin is very, soft, having the consistence of thick treacle, and this is doubtless the reason xchy it is always mixed with frag- 

 ments of earth which makes it more easy to handle- The sample which I examined contained but TJ per cent, of resin, the remainder being 

 adulterations. Alcohol readily dissolves the resin, and on evaporation leaves it as a very viscous, transparent light brown semi-liquid, which does 

 not solidify by many days exposure to a steam, heal. When burnt it gives out a fragrance, and hence it is sometimes used /or incense. Its 

 perfume is however inferior to that produced by many other renin* employed in the concoction of the incense employed in Christian and Heathen 

 worship. The peculiar consistency of the resin would enable it to substitute Venice turpentine for many purposes. A substitute for Venice 

 turpentine in India is mentioned as a desideratum in (he reports of the Juries of the Madras Exhibition of 1855, class IV." 



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