DIPTERACE^E. 



147 



the description given of it by Mr. Colebrook, in the Asiatic Researches, 

 showed that it had been erected on sufficient grounds. His views were con- 

 firmed by the full account of it by Mr. Jack, in the Malayan Miscellanies. 

 The genus Shorea of Roxburgh, if not identical with it, is very closely 

 allied. 



D. aromatica, G<ert. — Leaves elliptical, alternate and opposite, stipulate. Flowers ter- 

 minal and axillary. 



Gsertner, Blume, Fl. Jav. 8 ; Lindley, Flor. Med., 146 ; Shorea campho- 

 rifera, Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., ii. 616 ; D. camphora, Colebrooke, Asiat. Re- 

 search., xii. 539 ; Jack, Malay. 



Miss., i. 5 ; Stephenson and Fi &- 83 - 



Churchill, iii. 170. 



Description. — The Sumatra Camphor- 

 tree is very lofty and striking in its ap- 

 pearance ; it often attains a height of 

 ninety feet, with a trunk of six or seven 

 in diameter, covered with a brown bark. 

 The leaves are opposite below, and alter- 

 nate above, elliptical, obtusely acuminate, 

 entire, smooth, supported on short petioles 

 and furnished with subulate, caducous sti- 

 pules, in pairs. The flowers are terminal 

 and axillary, forming a kind of panicle at 

 the ends of the branches. The calyx is 

 composed of five linear, lanceolate, spread- 

 ing sepals, united below. The corolla is 

 5-petaled, longer than the calyx ; the 

 petals are ovate-lanceolate, and somewhat 

 connected at base. The stamens are nu- 

 merous, with the filaments monadelphous. 

 The anthers are nearly sessile, within the 

 mouth of the tube, and terminate in mem- 

 branous points. The ovary is superior, 

 ovate, and bears a slender, filiform style, 

 longer than the stamens and crowned by 

 a capitate stigma. The capsule is ovate, 

 fibrous, woody, longitudinally grooved, 

 surrounded below by the persistent calyx, 

 1-cclled and 3-valved. The seed is soli- 

 tary, thin, membranaceous. The embryo 

 is contained in an interior fold of the coty- 

 ledons.* 



D. camphora. 



This tree is found in great abundance in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo, 

 and is said to flower but once in three or four years. It was at one time 

 supposed that the only plant furnishing camphor was the Lauras cam- 

 phora of Linnaeus, but the researches of Mr. Colebrooke, and those of 

 Mr. Jack, {Malayan Miscellanies,) have conclusively shown that the tree 

 under consideration furnishes a product which is far more highly esteemed in 

 the East, but as it has been found only in a limited district in Sumatra and in 

 Borneo, added to the difficulty of obtaining the produce, its price is very 

 exorbitant, being 78 times that of the Japan or common camphor. It was 

 long since stated that the Chinese knew of two varieties of this drug, and Ksemp- 



* Dr. Lindley is of opinion that this plant is not truly a Dryobalanops, and that the 

 figure in Stephenson and Churchill, of which our cut is a copy, cannot be intended for it. 



