320 



JOURNAL R. A. S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. III. 



of India, and of Persia, Arabia, and Ceylon. In a note to an 

 article on the Flora of Ceylon, contributed by the late Dr. 

 Gardener to the Appendix to Mr. Lee's translation of "Ribey- 

 ro's History of Ceylon," it is mentioned, that he considered 

 himself the first to discover this plant in our Island ; but it 

 seems, from a notice in Ainslie's " Materia Indica," to have 

 been known as a native of Ceylon many years previously. It 

 is a common plant on the small Islands in the vicinity of 

 Jaffna, and some specimens which I saw several years ago 

 growing on what is called " Small-pox Island," close to 

 Jaffnapatam, bore a general resemblance to the weeping Ash 

 tree. Its seeds taste a good deal like Garden Cresses, and its 

 bark, which is acrid and raises blisters upon the skin, (in this 

 resembling the Plumbago Zeylanwa,) is used as medicine. 

 There are two species of the genus indigenous to Ceylon. 



" Over the olive trees and the sycamore trees that were in 

 the low plains was Baal-hanan the Gederite." (I Cbron. xxvii. 



The tree here and elsewhere referred to as the Sycamore 1 

 (Ficns sycamorus), is admitted to have been a species of Fig 

 tree, the fruit of which is like the common Fig, and the leaves I 

 like those of the Mulberry : hence the name. 



We have no less than 22 species of the genus to which the j 

 Sycamore belongs, and one, the cao ^©Ssrfass pan attikka (Ficus 

 glomeratus), bears a great resemblance to the tree here referred I 

 to. Some of the species are creeping plants, covering stones \i 

 and rocks, and the stems of forest trees, somewhat after the I 

 fashion of the English Ivy ; while others are amongst the j 

 giants of the forest. The famous Banyan belongs to them, 

 and when at Jaffna, I measured one in the vicinity, which, 

 with its hundreds of depending shoots, covered an acre and 

 l-12th of ground. This is the tree to which Milton alludes j 

 in Paradise Lost, as the fig tree whose leaves formed the first 



Sycamore. 



28.) 



