301 



Cfje &rca£urg at 2Sotang. 



[CLTJY 



whole force of vegetation is carried down- 

 wards to the destruction of the leaf and 

 stem. The main root is mostly affected, 

 hut The disease sometimes affects the 

 laterals. The structure of the root is 

 much altered, so that on division it looks 

 marbled like a truffle, and many of the 

 cells gorged with highly nitrogenous 

 matter. The disease is local, or where not 

 local, capricious, and probably depends 

 upon peculiar chemical conditions of the 

 soil. In districts which are subject to it, 

 the most effectual remedy appears to con- 

 sist in putting a small quantity of wood- 

 ashes, which contain several salts of potash, 

 into the hole in which the root of each 

 plant is placed. [M. J. B.] 



CLTTB-GRASS. A common name for 

 Coryneplwrus. 



CLUB-MOSS. A common name for Ly- 

 copodium. 



CLUB-RUSH. A common name for Scir- 



CLUB-SHAPED. The same as Clavate. 



CLUSIA. A large genus taken as the 

 type of the Clusiacece or Gutttferce, the 

 latter name referring to the fact that the 

 greater portion of the plants secrete in 

 more or less quantity a milk-like or yellow 

 resin. Clusia is chiefly distinguished by 

 its capsular five or ten-celled fruit, which 

 splits when ripe, each cell having many 

 seeds ; and by the numerous stamens, 

 whose anthers open along their whole 

 length, and not by a small pore or slit at 

 the apex. All are trees or shrubs peculiar 

 to Tropical America, and grow in very 

 humid hot places. A great portion of them 

 are parasitical on other trees, and a few 

 send down stout root-supports from their 

 thick branches similar to those of the 

 banyan tree. The leaves are opposite, 

 entire, very leathery in textm-e, mostly 

 obovate in form, and furnished with nu- 

 merous parallel nerves which are very evi- 

 dent in dried specimens, but almost imper- 

 ceptible in the living plants. The greater 

 portion have roseate flowers, but in a few 

 they are white or yellow ; in the larger- 

 flowered species there are seldom more 

 than two or three together in the axils of 

 the upper leaves, but in the smaller-flow- 

 ered ones they are numerous and disposed 

 in a sort of panicle. In the males the 

 calyx is of four to six leaves, the petals 

 four to eight, and the stamens very nu- 

 merous. In tbe females, which have a 

 calyx and corolla like the male, a few abor- 

 tive stamens surround the ovary, which is 

 crowned by a flat radiating stigma. The 

 fruit is a dry or fleshy capsule splitting up 

 when ripe into five or ten portions. 

 The genus bears the name of Charles de 



\ FEcleuse or Clusius, a celebrated botanist 

 of the sixteenth century. The leaves vary 



i little inform throughout the genus ; those 

 of C. grand/flora, a native of Surinam, are 

 from seven inches to a foot Ions', and its 



I beautiful white flowers from five to six 



I inches in diameter. Nearly allied to this, 



but smaller in all its parts, is C. insignis, 

 a Brazilian plant, whose flowers ' weep a 

 considerable quantity of resin from the 

 disc and stamens, so much so indeed, 

 that Von Martius says he obtained an 

 ounce from two flowers ; this resin rubbed 

 down with the butter of the chocolate-nut, 

 the Brazilian women employ to alleviate 

 the pain of a sore breast.' Other large 

 flowered species, such as C. alba, C. rosea, 

 and C. flava in the West Indies, yield an 

 abundant tenacious resin from their stems, 

 which is largely used for the same purposes 

 as pitch ; it is at first of a green colour, 

 hut when exposed to the air assumes a 

 brown or reddish tint. The Caribs use it 

 for painting the bottoms of their boats. 



Among the smaller-flowered species the 

 most interesting is the C. Galactodendron, 

 a native of Venezuela. This plant, accord- 

 ing to M. Desvaux, is one of the Palo de 

 Vaca or Cow-trees of South America. Its 

 leaves are about three inches long, oboval 

 in form, and narrowed towards the base. 

 The bark is thick, covered with rough 

 tubercles, and its internal tissue becomes 

 red when exposed to the air. In extract- 

 ing the milk from this tree the inhabitants 

 make incisions through the bark till they 

 reach the wood, these incisions are said to 

 be made only before the moon is full, as 

 they imagine the milk flows more freely 

 then than at any other time. One tree is 

 said to yield a quart in an hour. When the 

 inhabitants find themselves at a distance 

 from their homes, they make use of the 

 milk for themselves and their children ; its 

 use is accompanied by a sensation of as- 

 tringence in the lips and palate, which is 

 said to be characteristic of all edible vege- 

 table milks. 



C. Duca yields a resin known in Columbia 

 by the name of Duca, and burnt for the 

 sake of its pleasant odour. Upwards of 

 thirty species are enumerated. [A. A. B.] 



CLUSIACE^E. The gamboge family, a 

 natural order belonging to thethalamifloral 

 dicotyledons, usually called Guttifer^: : 

 wdiich see. [J. H. BJ 



CLUSTERED. Collected in parcels, each 

 of which has a roundish figure; as the 

 flowers of Cuscuta. 



CLUTTIA. A genus of Euphorbiacece 

 composed of numerous dioecious bushes, 

 confined to Africa and found in the great- 

 est number at the Cape. The double disc of 

 the male flowers readily serves to distin- 

 guish the genus from its allies. The alter- 

 nate stalked leaves are destitute of stipules 

 and vary in form from oval to linear; in 

 some they are evergreen, but in others 

 they fade in the autumn, whilst a few are 

 charged, as well as the young branches, 

 with glandular dots. The small, generally 

 green flowers are in cymes in the axils of 

 the leaves, numerous in the males, and 

 few or single in the females. In the former 

 they are made up of a five-leaved calyx, 

 five petals, and five stamens supported 

 on a central column and arranged like the 

 branches of a chandelier ; the base of the 



