322 



POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



of considerable bulk in the tropics ; and although with us 

 an annual^ bearing seed and dying within a year^ yet in 

 India it is perennial. Castor Oil is very largely imported; 

 nearly 500 tons is now the annual supply. 



Cascaeilla BAEKis the bark of a tree^ Croton Meutliena, 

 of the same Natural Order as the last {Eujohorhiacem) , 



It is produced in the Bahama Islands ; it is in small 

 quills and fragments of quills, rarely more than two or three 

 inches in length, and of an ash-grey colour. Besides its 

 medicinal properties, which are tonic, it is used in fumiga- 

 tions, giving off a remarkably sweet musky odour in burn- 

 ing. It is often called Sweet- wood Bark. About 10 or 12 

 tons are imported annually. 



Caedamoms. — The ripe capsules or fruit of Mettaria 

 Cardamomum. (Nat. Ord. Zingiieracea,) (Plate XYI. 

 fig. 81.) — Cardamoms were described in the chapter on 

 Spices ; their chief use however is medicinal, as carmina- 

 tive and aromatic. The sorts usually employed in medicine 

 are the Malabar Cardamoms, of which three varieties occur, 

 distinguishable chiefly by their size : they are termed shorts, 

 short-longs, and long -longs : the lucidity of these commercial 

 names will doubtless please those who quarrel with scientific 

 phraseology. 



