171 



£f)c €rea£ur» at 230tani?. 



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BROXTESIS. A name given to express 

 the injury done to plants by lightning. 

 This is generally clear enough from the 

 outward effects, the branches being broken, 

 and the trunk shivered. The injury, how- 

 ever, may be more insidious, and, though 

 no external damage may appear, or none 

 ■which immediately excites attention, the 

 connection of the component parts of the 

 trunk may be dissolved more or less com- 

 pletely, by the sudden generation of gas, 

 or the expansion of the sap, from the 

 intense heat of the lightning. The whole 

 vegetative power of a tree may also be at 

 once arrested. But many of the cases of 

 sudden death which are commonly attri- 

 buted to lightning are the results of the 

 spawn of some fungus attacking the roots, 

 vegetation being kept up by a slight thread 

 of sound tissue, as in the condition called 

 gumming ; and when this at last gives 

 way, the plant at once perishes. [M. J. B.] 



BROOK-BEAN'. Menyanthes trifoliata. 



BROOKLIME. Veronica Beccdbunga. 



BROOKWEED. The common name for 

 Samolus. 



BROOM. Cytisus, or Sarothamnus sco- 

 pariks; also applied to Lygeum Spartum. 

 ! — , AFRICAN. A common name for Aspa- 

 laihus. — , DYER'S. Genista tinctoria. 

 — , RUSH. A common name for Vimi- 

 naria; also applied to Spartium junceam. 

 — , SPANISH. Spartium junceum. 



BROOM CORN. Sorghum vulgare, the 

 branched panicles of which are made into 

 carpet brooms and clothes-brushes. Also 

 Sorghum saccharatum, 



BROOM RAPE. The common name for 

 Orobanche. — , NAKED. An American 

 name for Aphyllon. 



BROOMEIA. A most remarkable genus 

 of puff balls, which has at present occurred 

 only in South Africa. The inner sac, or peri- 

 dium, is precisely like that of Geaster, but 

 completely exposed, the outer sac being 

 represented by a thick corky stratum, in 

 which a multitude of individuals are half 

 sunk, like jewels in a matrix. Some ap- 

 proach to it is made by a fine compound 

 species of starry puffball, found in Ceylon 

 and Cuba, though in that case the inner 

 peridium is not at all exposed. [M. J. B.] 



BROSIMUM. A genus of the order of 

 artocarpads (Artoccirpacece), containing 

 six or seven species, natives of tropical 

 South America, They are larsre trees, 

 abounding in MilEy juice, and having en- 

 tire leaves. Thei'i-male and female flowers 

 are generally congregated into a globular 

 head, but are sometimes borne on separate 

 trees : they have neither calyx nor corolla, 

 the males consisting of single stamens, 

 separated from each other by shield-like 

 scales, and the females of a solitary style, 

 terminating in two stigmas. The fruit is a 

 small one-seeded berry. 



B. AUcastrum, the Bread-nut tree of 

 Jamaica, has a tall straight trunk, and 



smooth shining deep-green elliptical 

 lance-shaped leaves, its pale-yellow heads 

 of flowers are succeeded by round yellow 

 fruits, about an inch in diameter, and con- 

 taining a single seed, called Bread-nut in 

 Jamaica. These so-called nuts are eatable, 

 and are said to form an agreeable and 

 nourishing article of food : when boiled or 

 roasted, they taste like hazel-nuts. The 

 young branches and shoots, also, are an 

 excellent fodder for horses and cattle; 

 and the wood, which bears some resem- 

 blance to mahogany, is used by West In- 

 dian cabinet-makers. 



B. Aubletii, a native of British Guiana 

 and Trinidad, also forms a large tree, often 

 sixty or seventy feet high, and two or 

 three feet thick. The leaves are of an 

 oblong form, with their top end broader 

 than the bottom ; and they are covered 

 with a whitish down on the under surface. 

 The heart wood of this tree is exceedingly 

 beautiful, being of a rich brown colour, 

 and mottled with irregularly-shaped dark 

 spots, on which account it is called Letter- 

 wood, Snake-wood, or Leopard-wood. Un- 

 fortunately, however, it is only procurable 

 in narrow pieces, and is therefore chiefly- 

 vised for veneering small articles of furni- 

 ture, and for making walking-sticks, 

 which, however, are very liable to split. 



B. Galactodendron, which is the Cow- 

 tree of South America, yields a milk of as 

 good quality as that from the cow. It 

 forms large forests on the mountains near 

 the town of Cariaco, and elsewhere along 

 the sea-coast of Venezuela — growing to 

 upwards of 100 feet high, with a smooth 

 trunk six or eight feet in diameter, and 

 without branches for the first sixty or 

 seventy feet of its height. The leaves are 

 of a leathery texture, strongly veined, 

 and of a deep shining green colour. They 

 are about a foot long, and three or four 

 inches broad, of a somewhat elliptical 

 form, terminating in a sharp point. In 

 South America the Cow tree is called 

 Palo de Vaca, or Arbol de Leche. Its 

 milk, which is obtained by making inci- 

 sions in the trunk, so closely resembles 

 the milk of the cow, both in appearance 

 and quality, that it is commonly used as 

 an article of food by the inhabitants of 

 the places where the tree is abundant. 

 TJnlike many other vegetable milks, it is 

 perfectly wholesome, and very nourishing, 

 possessing an agreeable taste, like that of 

 sweet cream, and a pleasant balsamic 

 odour; its only unpleasant quality being a 

 slight amount of stickiness. The chemical 

 analysis of this milk has shown it to pos- 

 sess a composition closely resembling some 

 animal substances ; and, like animal milk, 

 it quickly forms a yellow cheesy scum 

 upon its sui-face, and, after a few days' 

 exposure to the atmosphere, turns sour and 

 putrifies. It contains upwards of thirty 

 per cent, of a resinous substance, called 

 galactin by chemists. [A. S.] 



BROSS2EA. An imperfectly known 

 genus of Vaccinia cece, comprising a "West 

 Indian shrub, bearing solitary axillary or a 



