Hortus Suburbanus Calcuttensis. 139 



ever of value to enable a tyro in Botany to distinguish the species, 

 the colour of the flower is also added. When the plant has an 

 established English or Bengalee name, that is also inserted, and an 

 alphabetical Bengalee index enables the reader to turn to all such 

 plants at once, whenever the vernacular name is known. Most per- 

 sons who are fond of flowers waste much money and more time 

 in endeavouring to cultivate exotic plants which the climate will not 

 permit to grow, but all this waste may be avoided by a reference 

 to the book before us, for at the end of each tribe or order, is 

 a copious list of exotic plants belonging to it, which might be intro- 

 duced with a rational prospect of success. 



The book will be illustrated best by a specimen of its contents. 

 We select, almost at random, one of the small orders, the wood-oil 

 tree tribe, and transcribe the whole ; so that it will be apparent at a 

 glance, what proportion is useful to botanists only, and what propor- 

 tion is available to general readers. 



" Dipterocarpace^e, (Dipterace^e, Lindl. Nat. Syst. p. 98.) 



THE CHAMPHOR TREE TRIBE. 



Generally large trees, arranged in 5 genera, comprising 32 species : 

 2 for Sierra Leone, (Lophira ;) and the rest E. India, viz. 11 of 

 Dipterocarpus ; 10 of Hopea ; 5 of Vatica, and 4 of Valeria. 

 Besides these, Blume has three species for Java, probably belonging 

 to Dipterocarpus. Roxburgh's Hopea eglandulosa constitutes a 

 new genus, to be referred probably to Euphorbiaceae or its neigh- 

 bourhood. More than two-thirds of the species inhabit mountainous 

 hilly parts of the two Indian Peninsulas. 



Almost every species of this order abounds in a balsamic resinous 

 juice, well-known under the common English names of Dammer and 

 Wood-oil, according to its hardening or continuing liquid, when 

 exposed to the air. That drawn from the Vaticas and Vaterias 

 hardens and forms Dammer and Piney ; that from the Dipterocarpi 

 retains its fluidity, and is the Wood-oil of the bazars. Some of the 

 species produce a fragrant resin, which is burnt in the temples as 

 incense. Dammer is used in India for most of the purposes to which 

 pitch and rosin are applied in Europe. Wood-oil either alone, or 

 thickened with Dammer, supplies a useful varnish for wood, possess- 



