94 



POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



all the Laurel tribe found in the Brazils. Small parcels of 

 Clove-bark are occasionally imported and sold for the pur- 

 pose of mixing, when ground, with other spices; its colour 

 is a clove-brown. It is much thicker than cinnamon, being 

 about the sixteenth of an inch in thickness ; it is in quills, 

 one within another, usually two feet in length and an inch 

 in diameter, each quill bound tightly round with thin pieces 

 of split rattan-cane. A fine plant of this interesting species 

 is now growing in the stove of the Liverpool Botanic Garden, 

 raised by Mr. Shepherd the curator, from seeds received by 

 him from Para. 



Sassafras Nuts, or Pichurim Beans. — These are the 

 product of another tree of the Natural Order Lauracem ; 

 they are the cotyledons of a species of Green-heart called 

 Nectandra Tuchury ; the seeds are split in two, and the 

 halves, or cotyledons, are about an inch and a half in length 

 and half an inch in width, convex on the outside, and rather 

 concave on the inner surface, at one end of which the mark 

 of the embryo is slightly indented. They have been called 

 Wild Nutmegs, which is very erroneous ; they however have 

 the flavour of that spice, added to that of Sassafras-wood. 

 They are much in request with chocolate manufacturers for 

 flavouring chocolate, as a substitute for the costly vanilla. 



