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externally in certain skin diseases, and in- 

 ternally for the cure of diarrhoea and dy- 

 sentery. The leaves and leaf-stalks are 

 used by the natives as tooth-brushes and 

 to harden the gums; the leaves are like- 

 wise employed in chest affections and de- 

 ran erements of the liver ; while calcined and 

 powdered, they are employed as an appli- 

 cation to burns to dry up the discharges, 

 and for the removal of warts. The seeds 

 of the Mango not unfrequently possess 

 more than one embryo : and for an account 

 of some curious deviations from the or- 

 dinary condition of a germinating seed, 

 the reader is referred to a paper in the 

 Journal of the. Linnean Society, 1861. The 

 Mango is cultivated as an object of cu- 

 riosity in hothouses in this country, and 

 has occasionally ripened its fruit. 



An edible cake is prepared from the fruit 

 of M. gabonensis, which is much used as 

 an article of food by the natives of Sierra 

 Leone. It resembles chocolate in appear- 

 ance, and contains a large quantity of fatty 

 material. [M. T. M.] 



MANGKUDTJ. The red dye root of Mo- 

 rinda umbellata. 



MANGLESIA. A genus of some authors, 

 but considered by Meissner, in his mono- 

 graph of the Proteacece, to form a section 

 of the large genus Grevillea. It contains 

 about eight species, all from South-west 

 Australia ; and is distinguished chiefly by 

 its flowers having a thickened style, much 

 swollen on one side, and about as long and 

 thick as the one-sided ovary, from which 

 it is separated by a constriction ; and by its 

 terminal conical stigma. [A. S.] 



MANGLIETIA. An Asiatic genus of 

 MagnoliacecB, consisting of only three spe- 

 cies, two of which are found in Nepal and 

 Khasya, and the third in Java. All three 

 are handsome tall trees with large entire 

 leaves, and showy flowers borne singly at 

 the ends of the branches, and scarcely 

 distinguishable from those of Magnolia. 

 M. insignis, one of the Indian species, 

 attains a height of fifty or sixty feet, its 

 trunk yielding an even-grained wood of 

 a lisrht colour. It has tbickish oblong 

 lance-shaped smooth and shining leaves, 

 and large sweet-smelling whitish flowers 

 tinged with rose-colour. The Javanese 

 I species, M. glauca, likewise has fragrant 

 j flowers, but they are of a pale yellow co- 

 lour. This also produces a light-coloured 

 ' solid wood of even grain, which is very 

 much employed by the natives for making 

 coffins, owing to its being supposed to 

 prevent the decay of the bodies piit into 

 them. [A. SJ 



MANGO. The fruit of Mangifera indica. 

 —, MOUNTAIN or WILD. Cbutsia flava. 

 — , WILD. The fruits of some species of 

 Irvingia. 



MANGOLD WURZEL. Beta vulgaris 

 macrorhiza. 



MANGOSTEEN. A delicious Eastern 

 fruit, produced by Garcinia Mangostana. 

 — , WILD. Emlrryopteris glutinifera. ^ 



■ MANGROVE. Rhisophora : hence Lind- 

 ley's name of Mangroves for the Rhizo- 

 phoracece. — , BLACK or OLIVE. Avicen- 

 nia iomentosa. — , WHITE, Lagunatlaria 

 racemosa. — , ZARAGOZA. Conocarpus 

 erectus. 



; MANGUAT. Agave mexicana. — , DIVI- 

 NUM. Agave Theometl. 



i MANGITIER DE L'INDE. (Fr.) Man- 

 gifera indica. 



i MAN-GURI. An Indian name for Arum 

 . indicum. 



j MANI. Moronobea coccinea ; also a Span- 

 | ish name of the Ground Nut, Arachis hy- 

 ; pogcea. 



MANICARIA. In nearly all the genera 

 j of palms the leaves are either more or less 

 j pinnated or fan-shaped; but in the present 

 genus, which consists of a solitary species 

 I inhabiting the tidal swamps of the Lower 

 Amazon River, they are entire, or occasion- 

 ally when old irregularly split. Individual 

 leaves frequently measure as much as 

 thirty feet in length, and four or five in 

 width, having coarsely serrated edges, and 

 transverse furrows ; and being of a stiff 

 I habit they stand erect upon the summit of 

 the stout crooked stem, which usually 

 attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, 

 and is deeply ringed with the scars of fallen 

 leaves, or covered with the remains of the 

 fibrous sheaths of the leaf-stalks. The 

 simply branched flower-spikes, measuring 

 three or four feet long, hang down from 

 among the leaves, and are enclosed in an 

 entire brown spathe of a tough fibrous or 

 cloth-like texture, which is ultimately torn 

 open in an irregular manner by the expan- 

 sion of the confined flower-spike. The 

 flowers are of separate sexes, borne upon 

 the same spike. The fruit is generally 

 three-lobed, and covered with blunt an- 

 gular tubercles of a dry corky nature. 



The Indians call this palm Bussu, and 

 its immense entire leaves are invaluable 

 to them for thatching their huts, each leaf 

 being for that purpose split lengthwise 

 through the midrib, and the halves ar- 

 ranged so that the natural furrows act as 

 gutters for conveying away the water. 

 The fibrous spathes also are converted 

 into capital bags and caps by simply cut- 

 tine round them near thebottom and pull- 

 ing them off entire, and afterwards stretch- 

 ing them open as wide as possible without 

 tearing; or, when cut longitudinally down 

 one side, they supply a coarse but strong 

 kind of cloth. [A.S.] 



MANICATE. Said of surfaces covered 

 with hairs, so entangled that they can be 

 stripped off like a skin. 



MANIHOT. To this genus of Euphorbia- 

 cr : re belongs the celebrated Cassava or 

 Mandioe plant, the fleshy root of which 

 yields the greatest portion of the daily 

 food of the natives of tropical America, 

 and one of the products of which is well- 

 known in this country under the name of 

 Tapioca. A large number of species, all 



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