80 VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AMD MALACCA. 



carries these nuts to many shores of India, near Tranquebar they 

 are picked up and used as medicine, as there is some superstition 

 attached to them. One side of the fruit resembling- a stiff brush, 

 is used by many for pohshing- and cleaning metal. The fleshy 

 part of the fruit turns woody and brittle. 



Among- these trees Ischaemums g-rew frequently including- 

 /. mulimm and a new species of g-rass, very much like the Lygeum 

 the stalk is creeping-, has joints and short lancet-shaped spread- 

 ing- leaves. The stalk bearing- the fruit is erect, hardly two in- 

 ches long-, the spike is hardly long-er than the involucre, this is 

 secund but contains 2 to 3 male spikelets underneath them a very 

 tiny female one, which bears a nut or ball-shaped fruits, protrud- 

 ing- at the upper part. I often found this grass in Ceylon near 

 Trinquemalle, but incomplete, but here there were many speci- 

 mens, bearing fruits, f 



Behind the above mentioned trees grew a great quantity of 

 Clerodendron injortunatum, which looked very well with their 

 blossoms red as fire and their blood red flower stalk, their leaves 

 were more than one foot long. Among these grew Dracontium 

 with its prickly and spotted stalk and its leaves, divided into long 

 strips ; they do not blossom at this time of the year ; besides 

 there was the common kind of Kaldeeren, § and among them 

 another species of the same family, which was growing in great 

 abundance ; close to the root the bark was split, but higher up 

 it was smooth, striped in rings like the ordinary specimens. The 

 branches were few in number and grew close to the stem only 

 near the top, the leaves grew at their ends and formed a sort of 

 crown, but they had no thorns like the ordinary ones but were 

 smooth and shiny, some were more than man's height but the 

 stem was not thicker than a thumb. There were many shrubs 

 with big leaves, among them some which had no fructification. 

 Upon an old Banyn fig tree, Asplenium Nidus-avis grew in 

 abundance, Cyperus Iria was to be found in abundance in damp 

 places. On some trees grew a Boletm hemispherical subsessile 

 coriaceous variegated with white and ashy semicircles. 



There was a shrub growing about man's height, it had only 

 a few principal branches, which were generally five-cornered 



t Thuarea surmentosa. Thou. 

 § Pandamis 



