ARTOCARPACE.E. 



579 



The different species of Morus, as the 

 nigra of Europe, and rubra of this 

 country, bear edible fruits, which are lax- 

 ative and cooling; their bark is said 

 to be cathartic and anthelmintic. M. alba 

 has a vermifuge root, but is most important 

 on account of its leaves being the favourite 

 food of the silk-worm. The wood of M. 

 tinctoria is well known in commerce under 

 the name of Fustic, and is much used as a 

 yellow dye. A native plant, Madura au- 

 rantiaca, has a tinctorial wood, which is 

 very hard and elastic, and is much used by 

 the Indians for bows, whence its common 

 name of Bow-wood. The inner bark of 

 Broussonetia papyrifera, or Paper Mul- 

 berry, is generally employed in the South 

 Sea Islands in the manufacture of clothing. 



Fig. 252. 



Morus nigra. 



Order 95.— ARTOCARPACE^.— Lindley. 



Flowers monoecious, in dense heads. Sterile : calyx sometimes wanting, and having 

 the stamens mixed with scales ; or of 2 — 4 sepals, often united in a tube, with only a rudi- 

 ment of a limb. Stamens opposite the sepals, and usually equal in number to them ; 

 filaments sometimes connate; anthers 2-celIed, erect or incumbent, rarely peltate. Fer- 

 tile flowers variously arranged on a fleshy receptacle of different forms ; calyx tubular, 

 limb 2 — 4-cleft or entire. Ovary free, 1-celled ; ovule erect and orthotropal, or amphi- 

 tropal and parietal, or pendulous and anatropal ; style lateral or terminal, usually bifid, 

 if undivided, with a lateral or radiating stigma. Fruit variable, having a fleshy involucre, 

 or composed of aggregated fleshy calices, containing numerous nuts. Seeds erect, pa- 

 rietal or pendulous. Embryo with albumen, straight. 



A strictly tropical order containing many important plants, though few 

 have any medicinal properties. They are all trees or shrubs abounding in 

 a milky juice, with alternate, simple, oftentimes lobed leaves, having large 

 deciduous stipules. The most useful spe- 

 cies are those of Artocarpus or Bread- 

 fruit, which furnish so large a proportion 

 of the food of the South Sea Islanders. 

 Although all the species afford an edible 

 fruit, the most esteemed is produced by 

 A. incisa and its numerous- varieties. 

 That of A. integrifolia or Jack fruit is 

 much inferior, though also used. The 

 famous Cow Tree or Palo de Vacca of 

 South America, which yields a copious 

 supply of a rich and wholesome fluid re- 

 sembling milk, is a species of Bromisum ; 

 another plant of this genus, B. alicastrum, 

 abounds in a tenacious, gummy milk. 

 The seeds known under the name of 



Bread Nuts are much esteemed in Jamaica as an article of food. A decoc- 

 tion of the leaves of Cecropia peltata is said by Dr. Ricord Madiana tG be 

 an antidote to the poison of Passiflora quadrangularis {Ann. Lye. Nat. 



A. incisa. 



