ON BALSAM BEEDS. 



303 



properties of a new substance, is another fertile source of injury to experi- 

 mental importations ; and inasmuch as the Technologist is specially de- 

 signed to aid merchants and manufacturers in identifying such products 

 as are introduced, from time to time, without any sufficient description at- 

 tached to them, I propose to write a few lines on some Leguminous pods 

 which were recently sold at public sale under the title of Balsam seeds. 



These Balsam seeds, or, as botanists will say, Balsam fruit, had been 

 in the country some time, and were offered for sale on several occasions, but 

 were bought in because the price tendered was too low and unremunerative. 

 They proved to be the leguminous pods of the Peruvian Balsam tree Myro- 

 spermum peruiferum of De Candolle, Myroxylon peruiferum of other authors, 

 a tree inhabiting certain parts of Central America* It is represented as an 

 elegant tree, with a thick and straight trunk, and having a grey, coarse, and 

 heavy bark of a pale yellow colour. Leaflets oval, obtuse, and nearly opposite. 

 Flowers white, calyx bell-shaped, with five petals. Stamens ten in number, 

 and free. The seed-vessels, which form the immediate subject under considera- 

 tion are samaroid or club-shaped legumes of a dingy straw colour, and slightly 

 shrivelled when ripe and dried ; most usually one-celled, though frequently 

 found with two. The seeds, which are of variable shape, bordering on the 

 crescent form, occupy the clubbed and broad part of the capsule in the centre, 

 the pod tapering towards the edges on all sides. On both sides of the seed, 

 cell, and adjoining, are convex cells filled with white balsam, the quantity 

 for each fruit being about the size of a pea in bulk ; this balsam is precisely 

 like that which exudes naturally from the tree, and its presence in the seed- 

 vessels serves to show how completely the tree is charged with the odoriferous 

 resin. 



1. Fruit of Myroxylon. 



2. Longitudinal Section of Ditto. 



3. Transverse Section of Ditto, showing seed and Balsam cells on either side. 



4. Seed of Ditto, medium size. 



* An article on Balsam of Peru will be found at vol. i., p. 59 of the Technol- 

 ogist. — Editor, 



