FOREI&N BOTANY, 305 



While the strange Indian Tree 1 sends her shoots 



to the ground ; 

 For the Warblers a harvest her fruit will be found. 

 The Cabbage Tree Palm 2, lifts her broad leaves on 



high; 

 The Fan-Palm 3 and Tamarind 4 also grow nigh ; — 

 The Guaiacum s rich in medicinal gum ; — 

 The Ferns 6 plants perennial and lofty become; 

 The 'leguminous Cassia, 7 with flowers of gold, 

 Is pleas'd her pale foliage in light to unfold : 

 While many trees more, in their floral robes dight, 

 Aroma diffuse on a zephyr wing light ; 

 For the Birds they would seem almost purposely made; 

 As food some, and others delightful as shade. 



1 Ficus Indicus, or Wild Fig. A similar tree is called iti 

 the East Indies Banyan. See a more extended poetical de- 

 scription of this tree in Southev's Curse of Kehama; see 

 also Milton's Paradise Lost. 



s Areca oleracea, 



3 Corypha umbraculifera, 



4 Tamarindus Indica. 



5 Gnaiacum officinale. 



6 Polypodium arboreum, or Cyathea arborea, a perennial 

 fern rising twenty feet high, with leaves that give it the appear- 

 ance of a palm tree. 



7 Cassia fistula. The fruit of this tree is a woody, round, 

 blackish pod, about one inch in diameter, and sometimes two 

 feet long ; it contains a sweet pulp, which is used in medicine 

 a3 a gentle purgative. It is a native of both the Indies; some 

 pergons have imagined this to be the wild honey eaten by St. 

 John in the wilderness — but surely without reason. 



